Take a break from the sea and immerse yourself in the Lattari Mountains for a completely different Amalfi Coast experience.
With a name that means “among the mountains,” Tramonti is the heart of the mountainous side of the Amalfi Coast. You won’t find one town center, as the village is made up of 13 little hamlets dotted around the mountain valley.
Tramonti has a rural charm that sets it apart from the seaside villages along the Amalfi Coast.
Wine enthusiasts could spend days visiting the various vineyards, like Tenuta San Francesco and Azienda Agricola Reale, whichproduce wine from centuries-old vines.
This story was originally published on June 6, 2024, and most recently updated on April 16, 2026.
When our family moved to Oregon from Southern California in 1974 for my husband’s new job, I fell in love with the Pacific Northwest. But there was one problem: There wasn’t enough sunshine or swimming pools — both of which I had enjoyed in California.
When the community college where I taught offered free memberships at a new gym, I quickly signed up. I expected exercise, but I got so much more.
Over 30 years later, I’m 81, and still going to the gym every other day. It’s still an important part of my health routine.
I found that the gym isn’t just for young people
The weight room is full of young people lifting weights, and they pound their feet on treadmills like the start of the Kentucky Derby.
But the gym is also filled with older people. There’s the 87-year-old woman who runs up and down the stairs “because it feels good,” while her 91-year-old husband maintains a steady pace on the treadmill.
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As a swimmer, I’ve met several people around my age, welcoming each other into the pool.
With a somewhat older crowd, I am pleasantly surprised at how disabilities and imperfections are of no consequence in the pool. Surgery scars, including mastectomies and even amputations, are not worthy of the slightest stare or question. The miracle of being in the water is that handicaps and age disappear.
The author says she’s stayed healthy thanks to the pool at her gym.
Courtesy of Cynthia Wall
Even those who enter the pool in a lift achieve equality once they are buoyant. I’ve witnessed physical challenges that make me realize how insignificant my own are.
I was surprised to find deep friendships at the gym
When I first came to the gym to exercise, I didn’t expect to make friends — acquaintances, yes, but not friendships that mattered.
But then I met Maria, an 80-year-old Austrian with an infectious laugh. I heard her in the locker room as she shared a recipe for Wiener Schnitzel with someone. I had seen her in the pool, swimming with her head held high to keep her beautifully coiffed hair dry. I smiled and said goodbye as I left. The next day, I swam alongside her. I switched to a slow breaststroke so I could keep my head out and hear her story — and what a story it was.
A well-to-do Austrian, married to a doctor, she, her husband, and three children were reduced to refugee status under the Russian occupation at the end of World War II. In 1957, they were able to emigrate to the US. Because of their belief in the American Dream, they thrived. Maria often commented on their good fortune; she also taught me European history. She taught me a little German and showed me that laughter is the best antidote for any problem.
Soon, our casual acquaintance became a dear friendship that lasted until her death at 103 in 2022. We spent over 20 years together at the gym, four days a week. I made other friends as well. All of us loved and admired Maria.
I believe moving my body and socializing are keeping me young
Going to the gym multiple times a week has kept me more than young; it’s kept me moving into my 80s.
I have fairly severe scoliosis, and it hurts. Without swimming and core strengthening at the gym, I don’t want to think about how much worse it would be.
Over the years, I’ve learned that going to the gym is the best thing I can do for myself.
I am stronger than yesterday — stronger in my body, stronger in friendships, and stronger in optimism.
TikTok’s US workers can finally breathe a sigh of relief.
The company announced Thursday that it has closed a deal to spin off parts of its US business in a new joint venture with an investor group.
“The safeguards provided by the Joint Venture will also cover CapCut, and Lemon8, and a portfolio of other apps and websites in the US,” the company said.
Adam Presser is leading the new venture, according to the company’s announcement. Presser has worked at TikTok for nearly four years, most recently leading operations and trust and safety. The venture’s seven-man, majority-American board includes TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew.
The agreement should keep the US government off its back as TikTok’s parent, ByteDance, now owns just under 20% of the new US venture. That ownership stake meets a divestment requirement set by a 2024 US sell-or-ban law targeting TikTok and other apps with owners based in countries like China, which the US has deemed a foreign adversary.
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TikTok’s new US owners include tech company Oracle, private-equity firm Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi investment firm MGX, each of which owns 15% of the new venture. ByteDance will own around 20% of the entity, and affiliates of existing ByteDance investors will own around 30%, according to a December memo from Chew. Other investors include Michael Dell’s family office and a venture run by the partners of growth investor Dragoneer.
What comes next is less clear.
While Oracle, MGX, and Silver Lake will serve as managing investors in the new US joint venture, their focus will be on areas such as data security. Key commercial activities, including e-commerce, advertising, and marketing, will remain with ByteDance.
The company began splitting up its US staff into different legal entities in January based on whether their work would remain under ByteDance’s purview, Business Insider first reported.
The leaders of several drone schools training Ukraine’s operators for the fight against Russia say they’re targets and they have to act accordingly — tightly protecting information and even moving around.
Throughout its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has launched huge drone and missile barrages at factories, training sites, and civilian infrastructure across the country, often far from the fighting in the east, straining Ukrainian defenses and serving as a constant reminder that nowhere in the country is completely safe.
Drones are prolific on the battlefield in Ukraine. Operators are priority targets. It stands to reason the schools training them for war would be too. Officials from three drone schools told Business Insider that they take steps to avoid getting hit.
Tetyana, a Ukrainian veteran who goes by the call sign “Ruda” and is now the head of R&D for Dronarium, a drone training school with sites in Kyiv and Lviv, said that it must follow strict safety rules because “the entirety of Ukraine is not safe, missile-wise, drone-wise.”
Dmytro Slediuk, head of the education department at Dronarium, told BI the safety measures, including not disclosing publicly exactly where its training centers are located and also changing their location “from time to time,” are necessary to prevent Russia from interfering with its training
To keep certain location data from getting out, the school doesn’t allow photos and videos that might reveal where its facilities are based.
The school has been mentioned by Russia’s military bloggers, influential pro-war accounts that often circulate operational details and commentary to large audiences. Though they are typically in favor of the war, they are also sometimes critical of Russia’s performance and dispute some of its defense ministry’s claims.
Drone schools say they’re targets for Russia.
Ivan Antypenko/Suspilne Ukraine/JSC “UA:PBC”/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
Rybar, a media outlet with 1.5 million Telegram subscribers, listed Dronarium as an example of Ukraine’s drone training efforts. The UK has sanctioned Rybar, initially presented as a milblogger but actually a partially Russian government-sponsored information warfare operation, and the US has offered up to $10 million for information.
Tetyana said Russian outlets have been writing about the school since 2022, the year Russia started its full-scale invasion. “As long as they write and talk about us, it means that they are afraid of us,” she said. But it also means that they’re on Russia’s radar.
She said the school and its attendees strictly adhere to a set of critical cybersecurity rules, and said there are also general safety rules in place. “When the air raid siren is on, all training activities, all the work, everything gets suspended, and we deconcentrate and get into safe shelters.” She said no one is complacent.
Vitalii Pervak, CEO of another training school, Karlsson, Karas & Associates, said that safety steps are crucial because “the Russians are constantly hunting for places where military personnel gather.”
Ukrainian officials have confirmed that Russia has hit some Ukrainian military training sites, killing personnel. It’s the kind of thing air defenses can try to prevent, but Ukraine has suffered shortages throughout the war. Ukraine has also successfully hit Russian bases and gatherings of Russian personnel.
The key is to prevent Russia from gaining sufficient knowledge of the school to target it. Its steps include “everyone who works at KK&A, including the cleaners,” having to do a polygraph security interview.
He said they don’t share any information about the location of the training center or about the appearance of the instructors or cadets.
“Some of our employees may have relatives or acquaintances in occupied territories who could be tortured by Russians for indirect contact with someone who opposes Russia,” Pervak said. “This secrecy also protects the instructors and cadets themselves, as well as their relatives, from attacks by Russian agents.”
He said that while the added security “hinders publicity to some extent — good things should be spoken about loudly — war dictates its own conditions. We are well aware that failing to observe the principles of secrecy may result in the death of staff or cadets.”
Viktor Taran, the CEO of the Kruk Drones UAV training center, said that “Russia is interested in destroying us.”
“Thanks to God and air defence, we’re still operating.”
