Muskan Sharma stood up to men who tried to bully her over her clothes - and went on to win hearts and a beauty pageant. The 23-year-old, who was crowned Miss Rishikesh 2025 last week in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, told the BBC that even though it was a small local pageant, it made me feel like Miss Universe. Sharma's win has made headlines in India as it came after a viral video that showed her spiritedly arguing with a man who barged into their rehearsals just a day before the 4 October contest. Sharma, who wanted to be a model and participate in a pageant since I was in school, said the intruders came in just as they broke for lunch. We were sitting around, chilling, having a laugh when they walked in, she said.

For years now, an online shop called Super Yaki has been selling T-shirts and hats printed with the message "Judy Greer should've been the lead." That there is a market for such merch is a testament to just how beloved an actress Greer is, despite her reputation for always playing the sidekick rather than the main character. This month, though, all those T-shirt wearers' wishes have come true, sort of: The 49-year-old receives top billing in a movie that debuted on more than 3,000 screens last week. If you're wondering why you haven't heard of it, here comes the catch: Greer's lead role is in a Christian family movie from the son of the guy who co-wrote the Left Behind books. Greer plays a mother who takes on the challenge of directing her church's annual Christmas play in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, directed by Dallas Jenkins, creator of Christian miniseries The Chosen, and based on the 1972 children's book of the same name.

Beauty, poise, and classical pageantry might not be what first springs to mind when you think of AI. But contestants in the world's first AI beauty pageant will need all of these in spades if they are to claim their share of a 20,000 ( 16,000) prize pool. The Fanvue Miss AI pageant will see AI-generated ladies go head-to-head in front of a panel of judges, including two AI influencers. These synthetic competitors will be judged on beauty, social media clout and their creator's use of AI tools. Will Monanage, Fanvue Co-Founder, says he hopes that these events will'become the Oscars of the AI creator economy.'

CEO says OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said language and cultural inclusivity is "very important" to his company's mission as it builds and trains powerful artificial intelligence systems. An Iranian-born mother says she is "endlessly grateful" after celebrating her victory in being crowned "Miss Germany 2024" after the pageant loosened rules on age. Apameh Schönauer, a 39-year-old mother, won the pageant last week. During the contest, she said on stage that she wanted to advocate for women who are dealing with the difficulties of being a migrant in Germany. The win is a symbol of the pageant's moves toward inclusivity in beauty.

For the four-hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare's death, Gregory Doran, the artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, wanted to dazzle. He turned to "The Tempest," the late romance that includes flying spirits, a shipwreck, a vanishing banquet, and a masque-like pageant that the magician Prospero stages to celebrate his daughter's marriage. "The Tempest" was performed at the court of King James I, and it may have been intended in part to showcase the multimedia marvels of Jacobean court masques. "Shakespeare was touching on that new form of theatre," Doran told me recently, over the phone. "So we wanted to think about what the cutting-edge technology is today that Shakespeare, if he were alive now, would be saying, 'Let's use some of that.' " The politics behind Shakespeare and stage illusion are more fraught than usual these days.