Tributes have been paid to the Office Space actor Richard Riehle and to the Australian model Sahara Ray, who have died aged 78 and 34. Selena Gomez says vaping changed her voice, Christiane Amanpour is leaving CNN after 43 years and Donnie Wahlberg was aboard a private jet that skidded off a Las Vegas runway.
Richard Riehle, the character actor known for Office Space, dies at 78
The American character actor Richard Riehle, best known as the nervous product manager Tom Smykowski in the 1999 comedy Office Space, has died at the age of 78. Friends said he died of natural causes in Los Angeles on Thursday, 15 October. Riehle, recognised by his moustache, built a career of almost 50 years and more than 400 film and television credits, appearing as a mechanic in Bridesmaids and in films such as The Fugitive and Casino.
His agency and management company said he would be remembered for his kindness and generosity, especially towards young actors and film-makers, whom he encouraged. Donal Logue, whose father he played for five years in the sitcom Grounded for Life, called him an amazing human and recalled breaking character with laughter during his final audition. Riehle also played the principal in the Ferris Bueller television series, a police officer in The West Wing and, more recently, a prison warden in Barry.
Born in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, on 12 May 1948, one of seven children, Riehle graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1970 and took a master’s degree in fine arts at the University of Minnesota. He worked in regional theatre in the Midwest and the Pacific Northwest before an uncredited screen debut in Rooster Cogburn in 1975, alongside John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn. He later played Santa Claus several times and voiced the character Bumi in the animated series The Legend of Korra.
Selena Gomez says years of vaping nicotine permanently changed her voice
The singer and actor Selena Gomez has said that vaping nicotine permanently changed her voice, in a video posted to her Instagram stories on Sunday. She told followers she would not be able to change her voice back because she had vaped a great deal and found nicotine very hard to give up. She urged anyone who vapes, or is thinking of starting, not to do it, saying it was not worth it, and added that she had now stopped and hoped to keep it that way.
Gomez joked that people who disliked hearing her voice were free not to listen. About a year ago, during an Instagram livestream, she had linked earlier changes in her voice to swelling inside her throat, without mentioning vaping. The singer, who founded the cosmetics brand Rare Beauty, has also spoken about living with lupus, which was diagnosed in 2013 and led to a kidney transplant in 2017, and about arthritis in her fingers that she attributes to the disease.
Researchers and health bodies say nicotine e-cigarettes can damage health, particularly that of children and young people, although they are considered far less harmful than smoking tobacco. Vaping raises the risk of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease compared with not using nicotine at all, and common side effects include throat and mouth irritation, coughing and headaches. Nicotine itself is addictive and harmful to foetuses, children and adolescents, while trials show nicotine vapes help smokers quit more often than patches or gum.
Australian model Sahara Ray dies aged 34, months after becoming a mother
The Australian model and swimwear designer Sahara Ray has died aged 34, her family said on Monday, adding that she died in hospital surrounded by relatives. The cause of her death has not been officially confirmed. Ray, the daughter of the big-wave surfer Tony Ray, built a large following on Instagram, launched her own label, Sahara Ray Swim, and drew wide attention in 2016 when she was photographed on holiday in Hawaii with the singer Justin Bieber.
Her mother, Gretchen Bach, described her as driven and committed, and her younger sister, Ruby, wrote that she was struggling to understand how someone so full of life could be gone. Ray’s death came nine months after she introduced her daughter, Snow, in January; she never publicly named the father. She had also been linked to the Australian singer Cody Simpson and the British model Lottie Moss, and after moving to Los Angeles she studied at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising.
Ray had spoken openly about her health and about addiction. In December 2021 she said she had entered a 30-day treatment programme in Malibu for drug and alcohol addiction and her mental health, and in 2024 she said she had been diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome after a car crash, losing feeling in her legs. The rare disorder occurs when the immune system attacks the peripheral nerves, usually causing weakness that begins in the feet and hands; most severe cases recover well with prompt treatment.
Christiane Amanpour will leave CNN after 43 years as the network changes owners
Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s chief international anchor, said on Monday that she would leave the network after 43 years. Her daily programme on CNN International will become weekly at the start of 2027 and end in May, and she will leave the following month, while her PBS show Amanpour and Company will end this year. Amanpour, 68, said she had decided to part ways after months of reflection and a few sleepless nights, and that she looked forward to new projects.
She gave no reason for leaving, but her decision follows the completion on 6 October of the $81 billion takeover of CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, by Skydance-owned Paramount, which brings CNN and CBS under one owner. Amanpour said she had always been fiercely independent and spoke of unprecedented political and financial pressures. CNN chief executive Mark Thompson praised her work and recalled that an early boss had told her she lacked what it took to be a correspondent.
Born in Ealing, west London, in 1958 to an Iranian father and a British mother, Amanpour grew up in Tehran until the age of 11 before going to school in England. She joined CNN in 1983 as an entry-level assistant on the foreign desk in Atlanta, and her reporting on the Gulf War after Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait brought her wide recognition. She went on to cover wars in Bosnia, Rwanda and Afghanistan, won Peabody Awards in 1993 and 1998, and has spoken publicly about her 2021 ovarian cancer diagnosis.
Donnie Wahlberg thanks pilots after his private jet skids off a Las Vegas runway
The singer and actor Donnie Wahlberg has said he was among eight people aboard a private jet that slid off the end of a runway on Sunday morning at Las Vegas’s Harry Reid International Airport. The Federal Aviation Administration said the Dassault Falcon 50, bound for Toronto, abandoned its take-off at about 10:50am and left runway 1L, and the airport said the aircraft struck a perimeter fence. Airport officials reported no injuries, and the FAA said it would investigate.
In a video posted on social media, Wahlberg said the jet never got airborne and ran out of runway, and he credited the pilots and God with saving those on board, saying the aircraft took some knocks but its passengers did not. He also thanked the emergency crews. The FAA briefly halted traffic to the airport and two runways were closed for inspection, delaying flights by more than an hour on average. Wahlberg had performed the night before at New Kids on the Block’s final Las Vegas residency show.
Wahlberg, born in 1969 in the Dorchester area of Boston, helped found the boy band New Kids on the Block and is the older brother of the actor Mark Wahlberg. As an actor he played Detective Danny Reagan in the police drama Blue Bloods and later in Boston Blue, and he appeared in films including The Sixth Sense, Ransom and the Saw series, as well as in the miniseries Band of Brothers. He married the television presenter Jenny McCarthy in 2014.