Sonder's 1-For-20 Reverse Stock Split to Become Effective Wednesday at Market Close

I'm a theme-park journalist who's been covering happenings everywhere from California's Disneyland to Missouri's Silver Dollar City for over a decade, but for several years there was one event that was a hard "no" for me: Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Orlando.

For fans of nostalgia TV as well as avid animal and travel lovers, Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom is back in a big way. Sixty years ago, this beloved show innovated the nature adventure genre, enthralled viewers with its global destinations, won multiple Emmy Awards and galvanized conservation goals and gains. It offered an eagerly anticipated, families-gathered, weekly gaze at creatures in far-flung locales to a television audience that averaged 34-million Americans for much of its initial, astonishingly lengthy 25-year run. Between then and now, weaving through subsequent decades, Wild Kingdom had been transformed again and again, showcased on Animal Planet and as a web series. Now there is a fresh fourth project, the all-new Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom Protecting the Wild, which will premiere October 7 on NBC-TV (as part of its “The More You Know” programming block on Saturday mornings), as well as via NBC.com and NBC VOD. It is co-hosted by wildlife expert Peter Gros (who joined the original series in 1985) and wildlife ecologist Rae Wynn-Grant, Ph.D., a National Geographic Society research fellow and host of the PBS podcast Going Wild. Currently primed for 26 episodes set in North America, Wild Kingdom Protecting the Wild kicks off with journeys to California’s super-parched Mojave Desert for desert-dwelling tortoises, the Maine Coast for Atlantic puffins (nicknamed “parrots of the sea” because of their colorful triangular beaks), the Florida Coast for aqua-agile manatees and Austin, Texas, for high-soaring-quick-swooping Mexican free-tailed bats. I reached out to Gros and Wynn-Grant to share their behind-the-scenes insights and inspirations, as they forge modern Wild Kingdom paths, while still applauding the footsteps of legendary zoologists Marlin Perkins and Jim Fowler, who, as co-hosts of the documentary show’s dawn in 1963, put this legacy wildlife wonderland on the map.

Booking Holdings has viewed its planned $1.7 billion acquisition of Swedish-based company eTraveli Group as a coup in its attempts to boost its flight business. However, the European Commission has blocked the deal, arguing that the deal would increase Booking.com’s hotel market share in Europe.

Low-cost airline Breeze Airways is continuing to expand with a new flight from New York to Florida in time for a warm-weather winter escape.

Fore Adventure runs outdoor activities on and around Studland Bay on the Jurassic coast, offering half-day kayak foraging around Old Harry Rocks (£65), is suitable for vegans and vegetarians, focusing on harvesting wild plants and seaweed. Fishing and foraging (£70) adds fishing for crustaceans and fish such as black bream, sea bass and mackerel; and foraging and feasting (£140) adds a two-course meal. The company also runs two-day wild camping, sea kayaking and coastal foraging adventures (£290).Next kayak foraging trip 15 October, foreadventure.co.uk

A burger and fries by the beach in San Diego, California. (Photo Credit: sophia_ross/iStock Editorial/Getty Images Plus)

Airshare’s acquisition of Wheels Up’s private jet management business closed over the weekend. It sends 90 airplanes and 300 personnel to the Kansas City-based operator, which already had 56 managed and fractional aircraft in its fleet. After the sale, Wheels Up still has 215 airframes, including 75 King Air turboprops, 52 super midsize jets it can deploy for transcontinental flights, and 61 light jets. For both companies, Wheels Up the fourth-largest operator based on fractional and charter flight hours, and Airshare, ranked 11th, it marks a new chapter.

Alaska Airlines will expand its presence in San Diego next year, adding a new flight from the Southern California city to Atlanta.

Earlier this year, Southwest Airlines brought back its promotion to earn a limited-time Companion Pass. If you registered, booked a flight between Aug. 28 and Aug. 30 and completed travel by Sept. 30, you'd earn a coveted Companion Pass valid from Jan. 8 through March 8, 2024.

On the PBS show America Outdoors with Baratunde Thurston, the second season of which is airing now, each episode showcases a gorgeous spot in the United States, and the ways in which a half dozen or so local residents enjoy the place. In an upcoming Oregon episode, Emmy-nominated host, producer, comedian, and writer Baratunde Thurston checks out a roller derby in Portland, cowboys on a sustainable ranch, forest bathers, an underwater kelp forest, a community garden recultivating native foods, and more. As spectacular as the settings are, it’s the people he’s met and their dedication to the planet that he finds endlessly remarkable.

Consider it the year of Italy for IHG Hotels & Resorts.

U.S. tourism businesses just finished their first post-pandemic sales missions to China — their first trips in four years.