Nicole's Favorite Poem Collection

• Oscar Wilde
• Maya Angelou
• Robert Browning
• Tagora
• Carl Sandburg

• Oscar Wilde
• Maya Angelou
• Robert Browning
• Tagora
• Carl Sandburg

Netherlands captain Virgil van Dijk has been praised for his display of compassion to grieving referee Ovidiu Hategan in the aftermath of his last-gasp equalizer against Germany.

The Romanian official's mother had recently passed away but the 38-year-old decided to still take charge of the crucial Nations League clash.

The sight of a massive humpback whale thrashing in the sea doesn't usually elicit an invitation to splash around with him.

Humpbacks can weigh in at a whopping 40 tons and stretch 50 feet from nose to tail. That's the kind of heft that easily overturns small boats. And woe to anyone who should jump on the back of one of these behemoths.

But that's just what Sam Synstelien did when he saw a humpback in distress in Central California's Morro Bay this week. The animal was hopelessly tangled in a rope that was attached to a buoy.

Synstelien, along with crewmate Nicholas Taron, had already tried reporting the unfortunate whale to the U.S. Coast Guard — but they were told it would be hours before rescuers could be dispatched.

Hours, the commercial fishermen figured, this whale didn't have.

"If we wanted the whale to survive we had to go get it," Taron later told Inside Edition. "We thought there was no other option for the whale; we decided to go for it. We were so pumped up full of adrenaline, I don't think we were that scared."

Easy for Taron to say, of course. His role in the rescue was mostly in the enthusiastic cheering department.

In the clip, you can hear him quarterbacking the operation from the side of the boat while filming the entire operation.

"Swim! Swim!" he yells. "Move! Just get it! Get it!"

If there's one takeaway from this year's World's Ski Awards, it's that Europe is the premier skiing destination in the world.

Again.

This year marks the sixth for the awards, given at a glitzy ceremony in Austria, at the legendary Kitzbühel resort, this past weekend. Ski representatives from Europe, Asia, North America, South America and Australasia gathered in Austria for three days of alpine events, capped off with the awards ceremony. Voting was done online by both ski professionals and the general public.

Nearly all of the top honors went to European resorts, hotels and operators.

For the third consecutive year, Val Thorens in the French Alps was named best ski resort in the world. Europe's highest resort, Val Thorens is part of the 3 Vallees ski area (Courchevel and Meribel are the other two), with ski offerings for all levels and much on offer off the mountain too.

Chen Man is China's go-to fashion photographer. Top celebrities and models, from Asia and beyond, have posed for her highly stylized, otherworldly shoots that present China in a diverse and contemporary light. For her September 2018 CNN Style guest editorship, she explored the theme of imagining the future.

President Donald Trump fired back Wednesday after Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare rebuke of the President's disparaging remarks about federal judges.

"We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges," Roberts said in a statement responding to comments Trump made earlier in the week criticizing the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. "What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for."

Trump, in a response later Wednesday, stood by his comments from the previous day that prompted Roberts' statement.

"Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have 'Obama judges,' and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country. It would be great if the 9th Circuit was indeed an 'independent judiciary,' but if it is why......" Trump tweeted.

Port Blair in the Andaman Islands. The island chain is home to a number of isolated tribes who have acted with hostility and violence towards outsiders.

An American Christian missionary is thought to have been killed by tribespeople from one of the world's most isolated communities on a remote island hundreds of miles off the coast of India, according to officials.

The wife of a British academic jailed in the United Arab Emirates on charges of espionage has spoken of her shock at his life sentence and accused the country of mishandling and misinterpreting his case.

Amid signs that Britain and the UAE are looking for a way out of the diplomatic conundrum, Daniela Tejada told CNN's "Hala Gorani Tonight" program Thursday that "the UAE should have the sensibility and the humanity to recognize that it has been a misunderstanding and that Matt has paid for someone's lack of judgment."

Matthew Hedges, 31, a specialist in Middle Eastern studies at Durham University in England, was arrested by UAE officials at Dubai International Airport in May. He was held in solitary confinement for almost six months before being released on bail last month. Hedges and his wife have repeatedly denied the allegations of spying, but prosecutors insist the British academic confessed.

In her first TV interview since her husband's sentencing Wednesday, Tejada said, "It's not unheard of that governments -- in authoritarian regimes particularly -- misinterpret research as espionage work or as a threat."

She continued, "Matt, sadly, is the first person to endure such a travesty in the UAE as a Western academic, but it happens very frequently in other countries in the Gulf and it happens to Emirati academics."

It's often said that the best animated movies play equally well with adults and children, while bad ones prove an ordeal for kid-squiring parents. If anything, "Ralph Breaks the Internet" bends in the opposite direction: The colorful action should delight tykes, but the smart, media-savvy asides make it especially appealing to grownups.

Six years removed from the original "Wreck-It Ralph," the sequel reloads with an inspired premise, as the video-game character of its title (voiced by John C. Reilly) -- always eager to help, but prone to make a mess of things -- inadvertently breaks the game that houses his pal Vanellope (Sarah Silverman). So the pair embark on a journey into the Internet, hoping to acquire the part that can fix the machine and get Sugar Rush back up and running again.

The plan, not surprisingly, yields a host of unintended consequences, one that exposes the vagaries of the web in an amusing variety of ways. Those include, but aren't limited to, the annoying nature of pop-up ads, the "like"-driven calculus of social media, and another reminder that you should never read the comments, especially if you're an unusually sensitive 1980s-era videogame villain.

Drawing heavily from real websites while creating a few new ones, Ralph and Vanellope's adventures are endlessly inventive, none more so than a self-referential dive into Disney's Internet site, where they're exposed to wide range of studio properties, including an animated version of the late Stan Lee and a room filled with Disney princesses. Even with the sequence having been extensively teased, the princesses' admissions about what they have in common -- from waiting for princes to staring at water -- are utterly riotous, an instant classic that will be replayed for years to come.

For all its pop-culture passions, though, "Ralph Breaks the Internet" also incorporates very astute lessons about friendship, and the issue of harboring different passions or growing apart. While modern Disney films have been especially good in presenting messages of empowerment and self-esteem, few have been better in communicating the need to accept others without being heavy-handed about it.

In this case, Vanellope finds a home away from home in a perilous first-person game called Slaughter Race, bonding with its seemingly dangerous leader, Shank ("Wonder Woman's" Gal Gadot). Confused and jealous, Ralph just wants his friend back, which paves the way for the cascading threat that he naively unleashes and must try to fix.

In most every way "Ralph" improves on its previous outing, in some respects owing a stronger debt to sibling Pixar's "Inside Out" in its approach to childhood insecurities through a lens to which adults can easily relate. (Even Vanellope's glitching when she becomes agitated says something with a genuine sweetness to it.)

"Ralph Breaks the Internet" leads off a pair of family-friendly sequels that Disney will release this holiday season, the other being the eagerly anticipated follow-up "Mary Poppins Returns." If the latter is anywhere near this satisfying, the studio might not break the Internet, but it has a fair shot at breaking the bank.

"Ralph Breaks the Internet" opens Nov. 21 in the U.S. It's rated PG.

Having nurtured his son's tennis progression, Sunday was a particularly poignant moment for Alexander Zverev Sr. as he watched the 21-year-old prodigy topple Novak Djokovic in straight sets and win the ATP World Tour Finals the day after ousting Roger Federer in the semifinals in London.

"There were a lot of emotions hugging him. He had a lot of emotions as well," Zverev told CNN Sport's Christina Macfarlane after Sunday's victory.

"He's basically been coaching me for 21 years ... I can't thank him enough."

Armed attackers attempted to storm the Chinese consulate in the Pakistani city of Karachi Friday morning local time, killing four people, authorities said.

Three attackers were also killed in the assault on the consulate in the city's high-security red zone, according to a Pakistan foreign ministry spokesman.

The Baloch Liberation Army, a separatist group, claimed responsibility for the attack in a tweet including a photo of three unidentified men and the message: "Karachi: Fidayeen of BLA attacked the Chinese embassy in Karachi."

"Fidayeen" is an Arabic term that loosely translates as "one who sacrifices himself."

In a statement released after the attack, the group said its objectives were "clear -- we will not tolerate any Chinese military expansionist endeavors on Baloch soil."

Eighteen-year-old Elias Ali was stocking shelves at the Karibu Grocery and Deli in St. Paul, Minnesota, when it suddenly shook Friday morning.

Posters fell off the wall. Ali said he and others thought the violent vibration was an explosion, but weren't sure if it was in the building.

"By the time we figured out everything inside was OK, we went outside and saw the home had exploded," he said. "We were devastated, because we live a block away and it could have been ours."

Protesters block the Champs Elysées on Saturday during a demonstration against rising oil prices and living costs.

Police in Paris have fired tear gas and used water cannon against protesters on the Champs Elysées, in the center of the French capital.

The "yellow vest" protests, which began as a campaign against rising gas prices, have morphed into a wider demonstration against the government of President Emmanuel Macron in recent weeks.

Police say they have mobilized 3,000 officers in Paris to deal with the situation. A security perimeter has been set up in the city center, with government buildings protected.

At a news conference on Friday evening, French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said of the protesters: "Their freedom of expression will be guaranteed, but it must not be exercised to the detriment of security, public order and the right of everybody to come and go. There is no liberty without public order."

Protesters clash with riot police who fired tear gas canisters in central Paris on Saturday.

John Krafcik downshifted his white Porsche 911 and whipped it around a curve on a heavily wooded mountain road. The car's 25-year-old engine made its distinctive soft rumble behind us as he accelerated out toward the next turn. For a few moments, we stopped talking. I was enjoying the drive, but also the pleasant irony of it.

That's because Krafcik is the CEO of Waymo, the self-driving car division of Google's parent company, Alphabet.

I first got to know Krafcik years ago when he was the head of Hyundai Motor America. Before that, he had worked at Ford. He owns a small collection of cars that includes two Porsches (neither particularly high-end), a souped up Volvo wagon and a little known bare-bones British sports car called a Caterham.

These aren't cars for showing off. These are cars for driving. Because John Krafcik loves to drive.

He makes no secret about it and he sees no conflict. This is not like the owner of a vegan restaurant grilling bison burgers on his back deck.

"You ask a room full of people: 'Do you love to drive?' and most people actually would raise their hand," he said while he drove. "But if we ask the question a slightly different way, 'Do you love commuting? Do you love driving on your commute?' I think most people would say. 'Eh, not so much.'"

That's the problem Waymo is trying solve, he said. The company doesn't want to do away with driving altogether, just the driving that's unpleasant and boring, he explained. Starting soon, Waymo will be making its driverless van rides available to the public in Arizona. From there, the roll out of the service will happen gradually.

Deep in the recesses of most people's refrigerators lives a half-eaten bottle of salsa, some takeout Chinese food and last week's chicken dinner.

Pulling one of those things out, you wonder: Can I eat it? Is it safe?

A lot of commercially prepared items, such as sauces and condiments, have best-by dates on the packaging to ensure flavor, not safety, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

Packaged foods tend to last a big longer than those suggested dates. Last night's dinner, though, is not as hearty. Cooked food leftovers can usually stay in the fridge for only three or four days.

And if you want to put food in the freezer, it will last indefinitely, but at some point, it will start to lose flavor.