By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Roman Catholic cardinals from around the world gather for events at the Vatican starting this weekend that could amount to a dress rehearsal for an eventual conclave to choose a successor to Pope Francis after he dies or resigns.

On Saturday Francis will induct 20 prelates into the College of Cardinals, the exclusive group whose members serve as the pope’s top advisors and administrators at the Vatican and around the globe.

Sixteen of the newcomers are under 80 years old and thus join the even more exclusive inner sanctum known as cardinal electors, eligible to enter a secret conclave to choose the next pope from among themselves.

Saturday’s ceremony – known as a consistory – is the eighth time Francis has named new cardinals, again putting his stamp on the Church’s future by choosing men who mostly agree with his vision of a more inclusive Church.

“The odds are now in favour of having another pope who will continue Francis’s policies, but you never know how cardinals will vote once they enter a conclave,” wrote Father Tom Reese, a Church historian and columnist for Religion News Service.

One significant appointment in the richer countries is that of Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego, California, who is seen as a progressive. By giving San Diego its first cardinal, Francis bypassed conservative archbishops in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

McElroy has been an outspoken ally of Francis’ pastoral approach to social issues, such as protection of the environment and a more welcoming approach to gay Catholics.

McElroy also has opposed conservative U.S. clergymen who want to ban Catholic politicians, including President Joe Biden and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, from receiving communion because of their support of abortion rights.

Francis, elected as pope in 2013, has now chosen 83 of the 132 cardinal electors, or about 63%. Church law stipulates a maximum of 120 electors but popes regularly ignore that, mostly because the numbers go down as other cardinals turn 80 and lose their voting rights.

The 85-year-old pontiff told Reuters in an interview last month that if he does resign in the future for health reasons – instead of dying in office – he has no plans to do so anytime soon. This means he could name even more cardinals as soon as next year.

GETTING TO KNOW YOU

Perhaps more significant than the consistory itself will be two days of closed door meetings of cardinals on Monday and Tuesday.

The meetings, officially to discuss the Vatican’s new constitution, will give cardinals a rare opportunity to size each other up in person without being under the pressure of gathering to elect a new pope.

“For the majority of the cardinals, it will be the first time they can get to know each other personally,” wrote Luis Badilla, head of the Il Sismografo website that specialises in Church issues. He said they would be a “rehearsal for a conclave”.

Since his election as the first Latin American pope, Francis’ has mostly broken the mould used by his predecessors in picking cardinals. Often he has preferred men from far-flung places or smaller cities, rather than from big capitals of the developed world where having a cardinal was considered automatic.

Archbishop Leonardo Steiner of Manaus, Brazil, becomes the first cardinal from the Amazon region, underscoring Francis’ concern for indigenous people and the environment.

Another unexpected new cardinal elector is Archbishop Giorgio Marengo, an Italian who is the Catholic Church’s administrator in Mongolia. At 48, he is the youngest of the new cardinal electors.

Mongolia has fewer than 1,500 Catholics but is strategically significant because it borders with China, where the Vatican is trying to improve the situation for Catholics.

With each consistory, Francis has continued what one diplomat has called a “tilt towards Asia,” increasing the likelihood that the next pope could be from the region that is a growing economic and political powerhouse.

Other new electors come from Singapore, India and East Timor.

(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Robbie Williams says he no longer craves sex with strangers since finding love with his wife.

He also admitted he is still a “s******” and reckons he would be “naked all the time” if he had a “bigger c***”.

In an interview with Grazia over Zoom while naked in bed, the 48-year-old singer also said his wife of 12 years Ayda Field, 43, gives him everything he wants.

He said about his love for her and their four kids: “It’s amazing for somebody built like me – to put it in vulgar terms – a sh*****. She gives me everything I want.

“I don’t mean sex-wise. My thing in the ’90s was sex with strangers, I didn’t know whether I’d be able to give that up… I was saying to her (Ayda) last night, it’s really special that we’re around a lot of really good looking people, all the way through the summer – and I feel no longing to be up to the nefarious stuff.

“She’s really empathetic, really kind, incredibly smart and very, very funny – and I trust her.

“The thing with sex with other people is very much like cocaine. I’m not looking for cocaine anymore and therefore I don’t find it.”

Robbie, whose exes include Melanie C, Geri Horner, Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Appleton, met Ayda in May 2006 when she appeared on a UFO documentary that he produced for the BBC, and they married in 2010.

The pair share children Theodora, 10, Charlton, seven, Coco, three and two-year-old Beau.

His family life is a long way from his past excesses, with Robbie renowned for his previous addictions to drink, drugs, sex and later food.

The ex-Take That singer has admitted he “kind of broke the ’90s” due to “self-medication, due to some sort of –ism, and mental illness”.

(Reuters) – Russia has launched missiles at a railroad station in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told a Ukraine-focused meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday.

“This is our life every day. This is how Russia got prepared for this U.N. session,” Zelenskiy said over video link. There were deaths and injuries in the missile strikes, Zelenskiy said, warning that the death toll could rise.

(Reporting by Rami Ayyub and Arshad Mohammed)

The COVID-19 pandemic has created the perfect environment for change. And for many, that meant enhancing their bodies via plastic surgery, Radar has learned.

Demand for breast augmentation, face lifts and tummy tucks during the pandemic. Some experts believe disposable income and self-esteem issues are responsible for the surge in plastic surgery.

According to researchers at the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, 76 percent of the United States’ plastic surgeons have seen an increase in people seeking their services compared to pre-pandemic times. Nearly a fourth of the doctors have said their business has doubled.

Liposuctions, facelifts, breast augmentation, tummy tucks and breast lifts were the most common procedures that went up in demand. According to doctors, more than 75 percent of patients are open to spending money on plastic surgery than before.

Part of the reason for the increase in such surgeries is that many people skipped vacations and doing other activities, creating more disposable income. Also, experts have said that people staring at themselves on video calls while working from home has caused some self-esteem issues.

Some doctors feared they would go out of business because of the pandemic. However, the opposite has happened. “With COVID, we prepared for the worst. But when we were able to reopen our office, we were pleasantly surprised with the incredible surge of demand for our cosmetic services, both surgical and noninvasive,’ Dr. Bob Basu, a plastic surgeon based in Houston, Texas, who serves as vice president of finance for ASPS,

“Now that the worst is hopefully behind us and people are traveling again and getting back to normal life, I initially thought that we would see some of that demand drop off, and that’s not been the case. We’re actually still seeing very high demand,” he added.

More than 300 representatives from plastic surgery companies in the U.S. took part in the study. Forty-seven percent of those said they were seeing “slightly” more business than before the COVID-19 pandemic started to plague the U.S. in March 2020.

Washington (AFP) – President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced that most US university graduates still trying to pay off student loans will each get $10,000 in relief, addressing a decades-old headache of massive educational debt across the country.

“In keeping with my campaign promise, my administration is announcing a plan to give working and middle class families breathing room,” Biden said in a statement issued less than three months before midterm congressional elections, where the issue is seen as a vote winner for Democrats.

The proposed debt relief falls far short of some Democrats’ goal of securing complete forgiveness, but is opposed by Republicans who argue that shaving any amount from graduates’ loans is unfair to those who have spent years saving to pay off their own debts.

US colleges can often cost anywhere between $10,000 and $70,000 a year, leaving graduates with crushing debt as they enter the workforce. According to government estimates, the average debt for US college students when they graduate is $25,000, a sum many spend years or even decades to pay back.

In total, some 45 million borrowers nationwide owe a collective $1.6 trillion, according to the White House.

Under the relief plan, $10,000 will be cut from all loans owed by people earning a salary of less than $125,000. For former students who went to university with need-based government assistance known as Pell grants, the relief will be $20,000.

‘Giant step forward’

Meanwhile, a moratorium on loan repayments that was instituted during the Covid pandemic will be extended to the end of the year, with installments restarting on December 31.

The plan was announced after months of consideration in the White House on how to thread the needle on an issue that has bedeviled successive administrations. Among the worries is that the program will feed already rampant inflation in the wake of the Covid-19 shutdown and subsequent economic recovery.

But Biden has been under heavy pressure for months from the senior Senate Democrat, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and lawmakers from the left of the party to take action.

“With the flick of a pen, President Biden has taken a giant step forward in addressing the student debt crisis by cancelling significant amounts of student debt for millions of borrowers. The positive impacts of this move will be felt by families across the country, particularly in minority communities,” said a joint statement by Schumer and leading liberal Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel called the plan a “bailout for the wealthy. As hardworking Americans struggle with soaring costs and a recession, Biden is giving a handout to the rich.”

“Biden’s bailout unfairly punishes Americans who saved for college or made a different career choice, and voters see right through this short-sighted, poorly veiled vote-buy,” she said.

(Reuters) -Pope Francis and the head of the Russian Orthodox church, who backs the war in Ukraine, will not meet when both men attend a gathering of religious leaders in Kazakhstan next month, RIA news agency cited a senior Orthodox official as saying on Wednesday.

Francis, due to be in the capital Nur-Sultan from Sept. 13-15 to attend the VII Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, has said in several recent interviews he hopes to meet with Patriarch Kirill when in Kazakhstan.

But Bishop Anthony, the Russian church’s second most powerful bishop, told RIA there was no question of the two religious leaders meeting on the sidelines.

“It (a meeting) must be an independent event by virtue of its importance,” said Anthony, in charge of foreign relations, who held talks with Francis in early August. Francis has met Kirill once before, in Cuba in 2016.

Kirill, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, has given enthusiastic backing to the invasion of Ukraine.

In June, Francis implicitly accused Russia of “armed conquest, expansionism and imperialism” in Ukraine.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Alistair Bell)

Rudy Giuliani’s ex-wife claims that the former New York City mayor fell into a tailspin in 2008 and it was a stay at Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago that helped him recover, Radar has learned.

The details of the struggle were detailed in a new book “Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor,” by Andrew Kirtzman, that is set to arrive in bookstores on Sept. 13.

The Guardian got a sneak peak at the contents, and one of the more shocking revelations tracks back to Giuliani’s attempts to secure the Republican nomination for president in 2008. It’s easy to forget that chapter in Giuliani’s life, with all the more recent and subsequent Trump-tinged headlines.

But according to Giuliani’s third wife Judith, now ex, who spoke to Kirtzman, the failed 2008 run sent her husband into a tailspin. He was drinking to excess, she claims, and spiraling into depression.

“We moved into Mar-a-Lago and Donald kept our secret,” she says in the book. As The Guardian notes, the only time Giuliani has spoken about this episode was to “The New York Times” in 2018, when he put a rather different spin on it, calling it a month of “relaxing.”

According to the book, Giuliani and wife Judith moved into a bungalow across the street from Mar-a-Lago connected by a tunnel that runs under South Ocean Boulevard.

During their stay, the Giuliani’s could come and go to Mar-a-Lago, without being spied by the media.

When Giuliani finally ended his public absence with a stint as a Saturday Night Live guest host, discerning viewers may have noticed a large scar above his right eyebrow that makeup couldn’t entirely hide. According to Judith, this was the result of a fall he suffered during his dark days while getting out of a car.

Kirtzman has covered Giuliani for decades and previously wrote a 2000 book about him, “Emperor of the City.” In this latest tome, he chillingly frames the relationship between Trump and the former NYC mayor.

“What’s clear is the two men’s friendship survived when a hundred other Trump relationships died away like so many marriages of convenience,” Kirtzman writes. “Giuliani would never turn his back on Trump, much to his detriment.”

Brazilian FIFA referee Igor Benevenuto believes “an infinite number” of people in football are keeping their homosexuality hidden.

“If we take all those involved – officials, coaches, players, referees together – 30 to 40% are homosexual, bisexual or once had something with a man,” the 41-year-old, who made his homosexuality public in mid-July, told Germany’s Spiegel magazine on Wednesday.

“Even people outside the football world notice that there are secret homosexual partnerships between footballers or sham marriages. You’d be surprised who is homosexual in this industry.”

Benevenuto criticized homophobia in football and his native South America.

“In Brazil, homosexuals have to fear being attacked not only with words but also physically. Attitudes haven’t changed yet.”

Very few people in men’s professional football are openly gay. Whether he would advise others to come out would depend on the situation and the person’s environment, he said.

“It shouldn’t just burst out of you, then the damage could be greater than the benefit. It took me a long time to find myself,” Benevenuto said.

“It’s a process, but when you get there, then you can – to stay in football jargon – play freely. I hope everyone can free themselves – because there is nothing worse than living for others and not for yourself.”

The Brazilian is on FIFA’s international list of video referees, but has missed out on making it to the World Cup in Qatar.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Conditions for religious freedom in Afghanistan have “drastically deteriorated” since the Taliban seized power last year as the last U.S.-led foreign troops pulled out after 20 years of war, a bipartisan U.S. commission said on Tuesday.

The Sunni Muslim extremists’ “harsh enforcement” of their hardline version of Islam “violates the freedom of religion or belief” of a wide range of Afghans, said the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

The congressionally created panel issued its report nine days after the Taliban marked a year since they overran Kabul, returning to power almost two decades after their ouster by the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

The report noted that the Taliban pledged to protect all ethnic and religious groups.

Yet, it said, “Religious freedom conditions in Afghanistan have drastically deteriorated,” with the militants reintroducing “harsh restrictions on all Afghans” based on their hardline interpretation of Islam.

Those negatively affected include religious minorities, Afghans “with differing interpretations of Islam,” women, the LGBTQ community and those who follow no faith, the report said.

The Taliban, the report said, are responsible for the deaths of dozens of Hazaras, an ethnic minority that follows Shiite Islam, and failed to protect them from attacks by the regional branch of Islamic State, a Taliban rival.

They re-established a ministry that includes morality police who have targeted women by enforcing a strict code of dress and behavior, including covering their faces, and limited their movement, education, participation in sports and right to work, it said.

The Taliban and Islamic State have both targeted sufis, practitioners of mystical Islam, it said.

“The Taliban’s seizure of Afghanistan has led to a rapid decline and near extinction of the already small Afghan Hindu and Sikh communities” and the militants deny “the existence of a Christian community,” which must worship in hiding, the report added.

(Reporting by Jonathan Landay; editing by Richard Pullin)

Harry Styles says he has gone on a journey to figure out and get comfortable with his sexuality.

The singer and actor, 28, dressed in a gender-fluid outfit of feathers and fur to make the admission in a cover interview with the new issue of Rolling Stone magazine.

Ex-One Direction member Harry, who is dating actress Olivia Wilde, 38, said while discussing playing gay policeman Tom Burgess in the new romantic drama ‘My Policeman’: “I think everyone, including myself, has your own journey with figuring out sexuality and getting more comfortable with it.

“To him (Tom), ‘My Policeman’ is a very human story. It’s not like, ‘This is a gay story about these guys being gay’.

“It’s about love and about wasted time to me.”

The singer added even though he is hard working he isn’t perfect, saying: “I’d like to think I’m open, and probably quite stubborn, too, and willing to be vulnerable. I can be selfish sometimes, but I’d like to think that I’m a caring person.”

Harry said one of his struggles with fame is dealing with fans who try to get close to him when he simply wants to be a musician.

He added: “It’s obviously a difficult feeling to feel like being close to me means you’re at the ransom of a corner of Twitter or something.

“I just wanted to sing. I didn’t want to get into it if I was going to hurt people like that.”

By David Morgan

(Reuters) – U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell on Monday gave his own party a 50-50 chance of taking control of the Senate in the November midterm elections, and predicted that the chamber will remain closely divided whatever the outcome.

Speaking at a business luncheon in Georgetown, Kentucky, McConnell also said the U.S. Congress would find ways to work with Democratic President Joe Biden, if Republicans manage to capture both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The remarks came a week after he suggested that Republicans could stand a better chance of gaining a majority in the House than in the Senate, citing candidate quality as a reason for tempered expectations.

“Flipping the Senate, what are the chances? It’s a 50-50 proposition. We’ve got a 50-50 Senate right now. We’ve got a 50-50 nation. And I think the outcome is likely to be very, very close either way,” McConnell told the Scott County Chamber of Commerce on Monday.

“If both the House and the Senate flip, I think the president will be a moderate. He won’t have any choice. And so, we’ll try to find ways to make some progress for the country during the last two years of his term … but not big dramatic change.”

At a time when polls show that most Republicans believe former President Donald Trump’s falsehoods about a stolen 2020 election, McConnell urged his audience not to be concerned about election fraud.

“Election fraud, there is some,” McConnell said. “It happens occasionally. But our democracy is solid. And of the things we need to worry about, I wouldn’t be worried about that one.”

Republicans entered the 2022 campaign hopeful of capturing both chambers of Congress, with Democrats under pressure from inflation, Biden’s anemic job approval numbers and historical political trends.

While the party is still favored to win a majority in the House, its prospects for flipping the Senate have been dimmed by lackluster performances among first-time Republican candidates in key swing states including Arizona, Georgia, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

(Reporting by David Morgan in Washington; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)