Ask many an adept host (including Ina Garten) and they’ll tell you the ideal number of dinner party guests is six — quite a few mouths to feed if you’re on a budget. Summer is a great time for dining al fresco, though, and cost shouldn’t prohibit us from connecting over a meal. To that end, Salon put together some tips for hosting inexpensive dinner parties that will help you keep things simple yet celebratory. Check them out. — the Nice News team
Featured Story
A Few Minutes of Exercise Are All You Need for a Mood Boost — Here Are 6 Ideas to Inspire You
Zorica Nastasic/iStock
If you have time to make a coffee or scroll through Instagram, you have time to complete a mood-boosting workout. Lifestyle conflicts and lack of time are two of the top reasons Americans don’t stick to their fitness goals, per a 2025 survey. But not every routine needs to involve an hour at the gym — in fact, if you’re looking to lift your spirits, justfive minutes of activity might be enough. To dig into the details, we picked the brain of Jennifer Fidder, certified personal trainer and owner of Jennifer Fidder Coaching LLC. “In the short term, just a few minutes of exercise can improve mood, reduce anxiety, and minimize stress for hours after the workout,” she tells Nice News. Click below to discover more about the mood-lifting benefits of short-term exercise — and get some quick workout inspo while you’re at it.
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For the first time in more than two centuries, the western facade of the Parthenon — located in the heart of the acropolis in Athens, Greece — is whole again. Two hand-carved marble blocks were slotted into long-empty gaps, restoring the iconic monument to “geometric perfection,” Greek Culture Minister Lina Mendoni said in a statement. The official reveal earlier this month marked a major milestone in a broader restoration effort launched in 1975 to repair centuries of damage from earthquakes, a fire, looting, and ineffective previous interventions. And while installing two pieces of marble may sound rather straightforward, the Acropolis Restoration Service called the project “one of the greatest challenges of recent years,” noting the difficulties of getting the massive blocks up the hill and positioning them perfectly within the structure. Already, it seems the effort was well worth it. “The sight is truly breathtaking,” Mendoni said, adding, “It is a moment of historic significance for the monument, for the Acropolis, and for world culture.” See more photos of the Parthenon in all its restored glory.
Sports
“Soccer” Is a Fine Term for the Beautiful Game — Don’t Let Anyone Tell You Otherwise
Matt Williams/The Conversation, CC BY
This article was written by Kirk Bowman, a professor of international affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology, for The Conversation. The word “soccer” is, in some parts of the world, shunned by some fans. Indeed, as a scholar of the sport who teaches a course called Soccer and Global Politics, I am bombarded with comments that the word “soccer” does not make any sense, and that people who use that term obviously know nothing about the beautiful game. To me, this disparagement of the word “soccer” is not only petty and tiresome — it is also incorrect. It ignores the roots of the sport and the development of the language of the game. Rather than making the word taboo, the football ecosystem should embrace it. To understand why, let’s go back to the beginning.
Culture
248-Year-Old Mozart Notebook Serendipitously Found in Paris
Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD—AFP/Getty Images
When Mozart was 22 years old — four years before his famed opera The Abduction From the Seraglio premiered in 1782 — he worked as a music tutor while studying in Paris. Nearly two and a half centuries later, the 44-page notebook the young composer used for his tutoring exercises has been identified at France’s National Library. The “major discovery” was unearthed by Francois-Pierre Goy, a curator in the library’s music department, while sorting through a pile of documents ahead of his retirement. “I never imagined what I was about to find,” he told AFP of the manuscript, which includes a dozen daily exercises and seven pieces for flute and harp for his pupil, the daughter of the Duke of Guines. Weeks earlier, Goy had been looking at other teaching documents Mozart had written, and noticed some overlap in the handwriting when he came upon the notebook. He pointed to “the treble clefs that are quite rounded and tilted slightly forward,” as well as the bass clefs, which differed from the style French composers typically used. It was authenticated by the Mozarteum Foundation in Austria this spring and verified as being part of a music collection confiscated from the home of the Duke during the French Revolution, after the family fled the country. And coming full circle, the rediscovered work was performed last weekend at the library it was spotted in. Listen to an excerpt.
Native New Yorker Janet Fash started lifeguarding in 1979, and what began as a college job soon became clear was a calling. Whistle around her neck, she spent her summers at Rockaway Beach, a popular spot known for unpredictable rip currents. It was on the beach that she met her husband, performed rescues while pregnant, and fought to improve training and equipment — and it was also there that she became New York City’s first female chief lifeguard. The retired 66-year-old’s memoir is an ode to her four-decade-long career, detailing the friendships she formed and the boundaries she broke.
We didn’t need The New York Times to tell us that Paul Simon is one of America’s greatest living songwriters, but accolades are always validating for fans — and if you count yourself among them, you’ll want to tune in to his latest concert movie. Chronicling Simon’s return to the stage after he experienced hearing loss, it features his first live performance of album Seven Psalms as well as reworked versions of beloved hits. He called the tour (which concludes in July) “one of [his] most extraordinary,” and “maybe the most joyous.” The film hit Hulu and Disney+ on Friday.
This Week in History
Albert Einstein Publishes His Theory of Special Relativity
June 30, 1905
Ann Ronan Pictures—Print Collector—Hulton Archive—Getty Images
Out of curiosity, can you explain Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity without saying “um”? If not, here’s some light reading for you: the pioneering 1905 paper that broke new ground in the field of physics. It was one of five he published in what historians would refer to as his “annus mirabilis,” Latin for “miracle year.” Positing that time and space are not absolute but rather relative to the movement of the observer, Einstein upended ideas that had been accepted since Isaac Newton’s laws of motion were introduced — but had proved problematic to scientists’ evolving understanding of the universe. Watch a demonstration of the theory in layman’s terms, if the paper above puts you to sleep.
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