Jamie Lee Curtis didn’t have an “inkling” that her youngest child was trans.

The ‘Halloween Kills’ star and husband Christopher Guest were surprised when their daughter Ruby came out last year but the 63-year-old star admitted she can now look back on the 25-year-old video editor’s life and recognise some signs.

She said:”I knew Ruby had had a boyfriend. I knew that Ruby had used the word bi. But gender identity and sexual orientation — those are two separate things. And I knew that Ruby played female avatars in video games.

“But when you ask, ‘Did you have an inkling that Ruby was trans?’ I would say no. But when I replayed Ruby’s life, I went, ‘Hmm, that, that, those, hmm.’ “

Ruby found it “intimidating” to come out to her parents, but they were very supportive, although she couldn’t bring herself to do it in person after summoning them together.

She recalled to People magazine: “It was scary — just the sheer fact of telling them something about me they didn’t know.

“It was intimidating — but I wasn’t worried. They had been so accepting of me my entire life.”

Ruby left the room and texted her mother.

The ‘Knives Out’ star continued: “I called her immediately. Needless to say there were some tears involved.”

Ruby admitted she may have come out as trans much sooner if she hadn’t had a “”negative experience” with a therapist after years of thinking she was “different”.

She said: “When I was about 16, a friend of mine who is trans asked me what my gender was. I told them, “Well, I’m male.” After, I’d dwell on the thought. I knew I was — maybe not Ruby per se, but I knew I was different.

“But I had a negative experience in therapy, so I didn’t come out [as trans] immediately when I probably should have. Then, seven years later, still being Tom at the time, I told the person who is now my fiancé that I am probably trans. And they said, ‘I love you for who you are.’ “

Tan France owns more than 50 coats.

The ‘Queer Eye’ star loves buying new outerwear but just adds the pieces to the others in his wardrobe, rather than replacing out old garments.

He told Page Six Style: “Coats are the thing I buy more than anything else, other than footwear.

“I’d say I have at least 50-70 pieces of outerwear, but over 20-30 of those I’ve had for over five years and still wear each fall and winter.”

Tan’s shopping struggle to find the perfect coat has inspired his new seven-piece genderless outerwear collection Was Him.

He explained: “If I wanted chic, well-fitting longer coats, I always had to pop across to women’s departments of the store, as I could rarely find what I was looking for in the boring men’s departments.

“Being British, I’ve always loved structured tailoring, especially when it comes to outerwear. I’m now a dual citizen, and married to a Wyoming rancher, so I wanted to bring that duality to this debut collection.

“You’ll see details like the ombré green patch pockets and the [colour-blocking on the] navy coat, which represent the changing of the shades of grass to hay on my in-laws’ ranch.”

Meanwhile, although the style expert insisted becoming a father to three-month-old Ismail – his first child with husband Rob France – hasn’t changed his sense of fashion, he admitted he now carries a change of shirt everywhere with him.

He said: “Honestly, the only thing [fatherhood’s] done is encouraged me to keep a second shirt with me when I’m out and about, because my son Ismail spits up every now and then. Other than that, I haven’t really toned down my style.

“I want my son to look at me as he grows, and to see that making an effort with your style can really help your self-esteem, so I don’t plan on changing my ways any time soon.”

Angelina Jolie says the diversity in the ‘Eternals’ cast is “how it always should have been”.

The 46-year-old actress – who plays Thena in the upcoming Marvel blockbuster – appears as part of a superhero ensemble featuring queer characters, people of colour and deaf actress Lauren Ridloff.

She told Variety: “What’s really quite stunning is that when we walked out all of us together, it didn’t feel like, ‘This is so new and cool,’ it felt like, ‘This is how it always should have been’.

“Why did it take so long? It felt so right.”

Jolie was asked why she feels it takes so long, and while she has “many things” to say on the subject, she focused on the idea that people should watch the film without actually focusing on its “diversity”.

She added: “I could say many things, and I could go on for a while, but I think… it is so good to just bust a hole right in that…

“What I hope is that when people watch this film, they’re not seeing it and saying, ‘Oh, this is a film about diversity. This is a film that shows this person can be a superhero.’

“They’ll just say, ‘Well of course that person’s a superhero, and of course that person also is. Of course.’

“And more shame on us for every questioning that they couldn’t be because, ‘Of course.’ “

‘Eternals’ – which is set to hit the big screen next month – is written and directed by ‘Nomadland’ filmmaker Chloe Zhao.

As well as Jolie and Ridloff (Makkari), the cast of heroes also features Gemma Chan (Sersi), Richard Madden (Ikaris), Kumail Nanjiani (Kingo), Lia McHugh (Sprite), Brian Tyree Henry (Phastos), Barry Keoghan (Druig), Don Lee (Giglamesh) and Salma Hayek (Ajak).

Meanwhile, Kit Harington will feature as Dane Whitman, also known as the Black Knight.

Tom Daley insists flashing his bum while diving is just “one of those things”.

The Olympic gold medal winner blames his tiny trunks for his bum often falling out in full view of the TV cameras.

Tom, 27 – who made his Olympic debut in Beijing in 2008 – explained on the ‘Table Manners’ podcast: “Basically the trunks just need to have a drawstring so they don’t fall off first of all. At 35mph they’ll come off, and if you don’t tie them up, they’re off, down by your ankles.

“At a competition, yeah, my bum’s been on the big screen. But it’s like one of those things that happens and they don’t show it on the replay, but still.”

Tom – who made his Olympics debut when he was just 14 – previously explained how the skimpy outfits for his sport impacted his body image.

The sportsman admitted to having a “strange relationship” with food during the London Olympics in 2012 – when he became one of the so-called faces of the Games for the host country – and admitted that he used to make himself vomit.

Speaking about his eating habits, Tom – who is married to TV producer Dustin Lance Black – said earlier this month: “You have these body issues as an athlete. Lots of people would look at athletes and be like: ‘What are you talking about? You’re an athlete, you’re in shape, you have nothing to worry about’.

“But especially as a diver, you’re up on the diving board and you’re so naked, so visible, so it’s quite hard to be content with your body, because you always want to be better.”

Nobody wants to eat lipstick. And yet those of us who wear it end up consuming an average of about five lipsticks every year, according to estimates from EU researchers.

Product testers at the German consumer protection organization Stiftung Warentest say people who wear lipstick daily ingest 57 milligrams of lipstick per day on average, citing EU figures.

Given this estimate, the organization’s testers took a closer look at some of the ingredients in lipstick and found that the whitening colour pigment titanium dioxide was in all of the 17 lipsticks they tested, in both cheap and expensive as well as in “natural cosmetics.”

If this substance is regularly ingested, it can cause hereditary genetic damage, leading to problems in the genetic material of cells and possibly even cancer.

Titanium dioxide, which was for a long time considered safe, is no longer deemed safe for use in food by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) since May 2021.

Consumers can tell if titanium dioxide is contained in lipstick by looking for the ingredient code CI 77891, sometimes supplemented by “titanium dioxide.”

Currently, it is still added to many lipsticks on the market, says Thomas Koppmann, project manager of the test. But with the EFSA’s reassessment, this will change quickly, he estimates.

Lipsticks are not only supposed to create the right shade, but also provide some care for your lips and the right level of shine – which is why manufacturers add mineral oil components. The testers at Stiftung Warentest are critical of these, too, because these components can accumulate in organs and tissue.

Although the health consequences are still unclear, EFSA considers the quantity which people already ingest through food to be “potentially worrying.” These substances and similar synthetic hydrocarbons are generally prohibited in certified natural cosmetics.
After all: coverage and care usually good

Mineral oil ingredients, also known as MOSH ingredients (Mineral Oil Saturated Hydrocarbons), are listed on the product packaging as petrolatum, ozokerite, cera microcristallina or paraffin, for example.

For the above reasons, none of the examined lipsticks were rated as “good.” Two lipsticks were rated “poor” by the testers due to the increased amount of MOSH. The rest received a “satisfactory”.

“From the point of view of precautionary consumer protection, we do not unreservedly recommend any lipstick in the test,” reads the test verdict. From a cosmetic and lip care perspective, however, the testers could find few faults with the visual results and with the impact on lips.

Washington (AFP) – Facebook’s oversight panel announced Thursday a probe of the company’s system to reportedly exempt high-profile users from its own rules, accusing the embattled social media giant of a lack of transparency.

A series of damning Wall Street Journal stories driven by a whistleblower’s leaks have drawn outrage and fresh lawmaker scrutiny of Facebook’s impact on mental health but also how it treats celebrities.

The so-called “cross-check” or “XCheck” system shields millions of elite users from rules that Facebook claims to apply equally at the social media giant, according to Journal reports citing internal documents.

The network’s semi-independent oversight board said in a blog post that it “has accepted a request from Facebook… to review the company’s cross-check system and make recommendations on how it can be changed.”

Facebook has faced a storm of criticism over the past month after former employee Frances Haugen leaked internal studies showing the company knew of potential harm stoked by its sites, prompting US lawmakers’ to renew a push for regulation.

The Facebook-funded oversight board, composed of experts with the final say on what is removed or allowed to stay on the platform, also criticized the company for failing to be “fully forthcoming”.

“On some occasions, Facebook failed to provide relevant information to the Board, while in other instances, the information it did provide was incomplete,” the panel said, referring to queries about the cross-check system.

Specifically it cited the platform’s ban on former US president Donald Trump, which it reviewed and ultimately upheld but with sometimes incomplete information from Facebook.

‘Paper over and deflect’

Facebook subsequently set Trump’s ban at two years, saying he deserved the maximum punishment for violating platform rules over a deadly attack by his supporters on the US Capitol.

At the end of Trump’s two-year ban, Facebook will enlist experts to assess whether his activity at the social network still threatens public safety.

“The credibility of the oversight board, our working relationship with Facebook, and our ability to render sound judgments on cases all depend on being able to trust that information provided to us by Facebook is accurate, comprehensive, and paints a full picture of the topic at hand,” the board wrote.

Facebook, in a statement, pledged to be clearer in its replies to the panel’s queries.

“We believe the board’s work has been impactful, which is why we asked the board for input into our cross-check system, and we will strive to be clearer in our explanations to them going forward,” the statement said.

Facebook has pushed back fiercely against the criticism, saying journalists have selectively chosen parts of its internal research in order to cast the company’s work in a negative light.

A double-standard regarding content moderation would defy assurances that Facebook gave to the board.

The Journal cited examples of posts from high-profile people, including one from soccer star Neymar showing nude images of a woman who accused him of rape and that Facebook subsequently removed.   

High-profile users’ posts are drivers of engagement on the platform, so keeping celebrities on Facebook is important for a company interested in continuous growth.

An activist group calling itself The Real Facebook Oversight Board attacked the panel’s work and even its reason for existing.

“The Oversight Board always was a PR stunt by Facebook to paper over and deflect from the company’s own failure to keep hate, racism and disinformation off its platforms,” it said in a statement.

(Reuters) – Facebook Inc’s independent oversight board demanded more transparency from the social media giant on Thursday, saying the company was not “fully forthcoming” on how it deals with certain high-profile user accounts.

The comments follow a Wall Street Journal report last month that said millions of Facebook accounts belonging to celebrities, politicians and other high-profile users were exempted from some internal checks.

The board said that Facebook has not been transparent with the company’s ‘cross-check’ system, an internal program the social media network says is used to double-check enforcement actions against certain users.

“Facebook needs to commit to greater transparency and to treat users fairly,” the board said in a tweet.

In relation to its May decision to uphold the indefinite suspension of former U.S. President Donald Trump’s account after the Jan 6. riot, the board said when Facebook referred the case, it did not mention the cross-check system until it was asked.

“Given that the referral included a specific policy question about account-level enforcement for political leaders, many of whom the Board believes were covered by cross-check, this omission is not acceptable,” it said.

Facebook, in the form of a policy advisory opinion, has asked the board to review its cross-check system and make recommendations on how it can be changed.

A company spokesperson said the board’s work had been “impactful,” which is why it asked for input into the cross-check system.

Facebook created the board mainly to address criticism over how it handles problematic content and is responsible for independent verdicts on a number of thorny decisions related content moderation.

Going forward, the board will publish quarterly and annual transparency reports to provide assessment on whether its recommendations were implemented.

In its first quarterly report, the board said over half a million Facebook and Instagram users submitted appeals between October 2020 and the end of June 2021, of which more than a third were related to content concerning Facebook’s rules on hate speech.

(Reporting by Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli, Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Arun Koyyur)

Ed Sheeran was freaked out by spending the day with a “naked” pop star.

The ‘Shape of You’ hitmaker – who won’t reveal the mystery man’s identity – couldn’t believe what he was seeing as the fellow celebrity stripped off at a club and “walked around” in the nude.

As quoted by the Daily Star newspaper’s Wired column, he said: “We were just in a club with a shower in it and I turned around and he was naked.

“I remember looking at his entourage and everyone was on their phone.

“He is naked and walking around doing stuff, gets in the shower and the hot tub naked, he gets out of the hot tub and I was like, ‘Does nobody think this is weird?’

“And he puts his clothes on and then the night resumed. That was quite a strange situation.”

Meanwhile, the ‘Bad Habits’ star has previously revealed is plans to give fellow singer Sam Smith a 6ft-tall marble penis after they saw the unusual decorative piece in the flame-haired hunk’s pub at his home in Suffolk, England, recently.

Ed, 30, said: “I’m having a life-size one made for Sam Smith as well because Sam saw one of them in my pub at home and said, ‘Oh my God, I’d love one of them’. So I’m having one the size of them.”

This won’t be the first time he’s gifted a marble penis to a friend, as he also gave Sir Elton John one for his birthday in March.

Elton, 74, said previously: “For my birthday this year, he [Ed] gave me a giant marble penis.

“I don’t know if that’s because I’ve always been a p***k or what. It’s really big, it’s beautifully made.”

When it comes to raunchy gifts, Ed has a history after Courteney Cox previously revealed he’d sent her a “leather gimp mask”.

Ed – who is close friends with the 57-year-old actress – revealed how he thought up an X-rated prank when she told him she could buy anything she wanted from her Alexa device.

He explained: “So, she walks out the room, and I go, ‘Alexa, order me a leather gimp mask’. “Unbeknownst to me, Courteney’s assistant opened the post, and she finds this mask and instantly goes, ‘Oh, I don’t think I was meant to see that,’ and leaves it on Courteney’s bed.”

KABUL (Reuters) – The Taliban praised suicide bombers who died during the war against the former government and its Western allies and offered their families sums of cash and promises of land, the movement’s interior ministry said in a statement.

Sirajuddin Haqqani, the acting interior ministry who has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head as a “specially designated global terrorist”, met the families at a ceremony at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, which was itself targeted by suicide bombers in 2018.

Official photographs of the meeting on Tuesday obscured his face.

“In his speech, the minister praised the Jihad and sacrifices of the martyrs and Mujahidin and called them heroes of Islam and the country,” the ministry said in a statement on Twitter.

Families of the suicide bombers were given clothing, 10,000 afghani ($111) and promised plots of land, spokesman Qari Sayeed Khosti said.

Haqqani took over from his father Jalaluddin Haqqani as head of the Haqqani network, a militant group affiliated with the Taliban that was blamed by Western intelligence services for some of the bloodiest suicide attacks of the war.

He is wanted for questioning by the FBI in connection with an attack on another hotel in Kabul in 2008 in which six people including an American citizen were killed.

Following the Taliban’s victory over the Western-backed government which collapsed in August, Islamic State militants have carried out a series of suicide bombings against mosques and other targets, killing hundreds of civilians.

($1 = 89.5700 afghanis)

(Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

Activision Blizzard promised change with a management shakeup following the long-running allegations of following accusations of harassment and discrimination against women

Washington (AFP) – More than 20 employees of “Call of Duty” maker Activision Blizzard have “exited” the gaming giant, the company said in a staff email, following accusations of sexual harassment and discrimination against women.

In August, the California-based videogame maker had promised a review of its practices following employee walks out over management’s initial dismissal of a state lawsuit that described a “pervasive frat boy workplace culture”.

In an email sent to staff Tuesday, the company’s chief compliance officer Fran Townsend said “more than 20 individuals have exited Activision Blizzard and more than 20 individuals faced other types of disciplinary action” over concerns reported both recently and a few years ago. 

The Financial Times reported Tuesday that more than 20 employees had been fired, including game developers and a few supervisors. 

Activision also said it would expand its compliance team as it fields an increasing number of complaints and aims “to build a more accountable workplace and culture”. 

Reports could be filed anonymously, the company said in the staff email, adding it would “not hesitate to terminate or discipline” anyone found violating its policies. 

Activision’s latest shakeup comes amid growing complaints about the treatment of women in the gaming industry in recent years.

According to the ongoing lawsuit filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, women make up only about 20 percent of Activision’s staff and “very few women ever reach top roles at the company”.

In addition to reviewing workplace conditions, Activision has pledged to examine its depiction of women in its popular games.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission launched a separate, federal investigation last month into whether the company had properly disclosed harassment and discrimination claims to investors. 

That same month, Activision and the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) reached an agreement over settling claims, with the company to pay $18 million into a compensation fund.

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Senate Democrats on Wednesday will try for the third time this year to advance a voting rights bill aimed at thwarting new balloting restrictions passed in Republican-led states, fueled by Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election.

The chamber’s 50 Republicans are expected to block the measure from advancing, a move that could bring new pressure on Democrats to change the Senate’s “filibuster” rule that requires a supermajority of 60 votes to pass most legislation.

Senator Angus King, an independent who aligns with Democrats, told reporters that if Republicans again block the bill, “we would either have to figure out a rule change or we have to try to have discussions toward a compromise solution.”

Many Democrats have been calling for a scaling back or elimination of the filibuster to make it easier to pass President Joe Biden’s agenda over the objections of top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell.

Biden, himself a veteran of the Senate, has voiced objections to doing so – although he suggested he was open to considering it during the recent showdown over hiking the debt ceiling.

There are several reform ideas percolating that could stop short of a full ban on legislative filibusters. Those could include carving out an exemption just for the voting rights bill or limiting the number of filibusters against a bill.

But with no sign of Republicans willing to compromise, King told reporters on Tuesday that Democrats’ deliberations on next steps “cannot go on for months and months … it’s got to happen in this calendar year” so that states have enough time to prepare for any election law changes before the November 2022 congressional elections.

Moderate Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have voiced objections to ending the filibuster. Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer enlisted Manchin to seek a deal with Republicans on the voting rights bill. It was unclear whether a failure would persuade Manchin to support a rules change.

SLEW OF STATE LAWS

At least 18 states have enacted 30 laws restricting voting access this year, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, following false claims by Trump, the Republican former president, that he lost the 2020 election to Biden because of widespread voting fraud.

Democrats and voting rights advocates denounce the measures as partisan power grabs that will make it harder for Black and Hispanic voters – important voting blocs for Democrats – to cast ballots.

“No honest observer can look at the way the states have changed election laws this year and pretend that there’s nothing malicious afoot,” Schumer said in a Tuesday floor speech.

McConnell predicted that none of the senators in his caucus would support opening a debate on the Democrats’ voting rights bill.

“What our Democratic friends have been wanting to do forever is to have the federal government take over how elections are conducted all over America. There’s no basis for that whatsoever,” McConnell told reporters on Tuesday.

Since leaving office, Trump has continued to repeat his baseless election fraud allegations. Multiple courts, state election officials and members of Trump’s own administration rejected his claims.

The vote on Wednesday will be for a bill scaled back from the prior version blocked by Republicans. It would set broad standards for how states conduct elections, including ensuring all qualified voters can request mail-in ballots.

It also aims to expand voter turnout by making Election Day a federal holiday and would outlaw partisan drawing of congressional districts, known as “gerrymandering,” that both parties have engaged in for decades.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Scott Malone and Peter Cooney)

By Sharon Bernstein

(Reuters) – The chair of the Iowa Democratic Party said on Tuesday he received racist messages and emails, including a threat of lynching, after writing an opinion piece critical of Republican former President Donald Trump.

Ross Wilburn, who is Black and sits in the state legislature, told reporters that after his piece ran in the Des Moines Register on Oct. 9, the same weekend Trump was in town for a rally, he received two phone messages and an email that used racial epithets and, in one case, threatened him with violence.

“Unfortunately, these kinds of threats are not uncommon for myself or other people of color serving in public roles,” Wilburn said.

The incident, which he said is being investigated by Ames, Iowa, police, is the latest example of threats and harassment against public officials in the highly polarized U.S. political environment.

On Monday, the National Association of County and City Health Officials asked the U.S. Department of Justice for help protecting public health officers targeted since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic by opponents of measures aimed at slowing the spread of the virus, including stay-at-home orders, mask-wearing and vaccines.

The organization said at least 300 public health department leaders had left their positions since the pandemic began, many because of threats and verbal abuse.

Educators are also coming under fire, amid protests and violent rhetoric over claims fueled by right-wing media that schools are teaching critical race theory, an academic model for describing systemic racism that is little used in public schools but that opponents say makes white children feel bad about themselves.

Educators have also been threatened over public health measures, including mask-wearing at school.

In Iowa, the threats and harassment against Wilburn were condemned by state Republican leaders.

“This type of hate must never be tolerated,” Republican Governor Kim Reynolds wrote on Twitter. “Whoever is responsible should be held accountable. Racism of any kind is unacceptable and not who we are as Iowans.”

Iowa Republican Party Chair Jeff Kaufmann said he is pleased that authorities are investigating the threats.

“I strongly condemn the racist threats made toward Chair Wilburn,” he said in a statement on Tuesday. “We can have a spirited debate on issues and candidates without threats of violence.”

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Peter Cooney)

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear a California Republican club’s challenge to a private organization’s cancellation of a 2017 event at a city-owned property in Pasadena that was to have featured a conservative lawyer later aligned with former President Donald Trump.

                                justices turned away the Pasadena Republican Club’s appeal of a lower court ruling that found that the cancellation of attorney John Eastman’s planned appearance did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, which bars government discrimination on free speech or religious grounds.

Eastman played a role in Trump’s failed bid to overturn his 2020 re-election loss based on false claims of widespread voting fraud.

The property at issue, the Maxwell House, is owned by the city of Pasadena, which leased it to the Western Justice Center, a nonprofit organization that focuses on conflict resolution. Space in the Maxwell House is made available for rent for events including weddings.

The Pasadena Republican Club had wanted to rent space there so Eastman could appear as a guest speaker, but the Western Justice Center canceled the event because his opposition to same-sex marriage and other expansions of LGBT rights ran counter to the group’s values.

Eastman was a professor at Chapman University School of Law at the time. Eastman is the chairman of the board of the National Organization for Marriage, which was active in the fight against legalizing gay marriage.

In the Republican club’s 2018 lawsuit, its lawyers said the First Amendment applied because the Western Justice Center was effectively an arm of the government based on its lease of city property. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in February ruled against the Republican group.

Eastman achieved a higher profile with his affiliation with Trump. He spoke at a rally where Trump addressed his supporters before the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Eastman also wrote a memo outlining how, in his view, then-Vice President Mike Pence could thwart the formal congressional certification of Trump’s 2020 re-election loss. Pence ultimately declined to follow Eastman’s advice. Eastman left his post at Chapman University days after the riot amid criticism of his actions.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

Washington (AFP) – As much of the world remembered Colin Powell with respect and affection, Donald Trump on Tuesday attacked the late US statesman, calling him a disloyal Republican who made the case for war in Iraq.

Powell, who died aged 84 on Monday, was a frequent critic of Trump and called on him to resign after the January 6 Capitol insurrection that the then-president instigated.

“Wonderful to see Colin Powell, who made big mistakes on Iraq and famously, so-called weapons of mass destruction, be treated in death so beautifully by the Fake News Media. Hope that happens to me someday,” Trump said sarcastically in a statement.

Powell, who was the United States’ first Black secretary of state, died of complications from Covid-19 after suffering cancer.

He was widely hailed a national war hero, global diplomat and trail-blazing African-American leader.

Trump branded Powell a “classic RINO” — Republican In Name Only — and added “he made plenty of mistakes, but anyway, may he rest in peace!”

Powell found it hard to live down his February 2003 speech to the UN Security Council about the alleged existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq — evidence which was later proven to be false.

Trump rarely holds back from attacking former enemies even immediately after their death.

After Senator John McCain died in 2018, Trump repeatedly disparaged the much-admired Arizona Republican who was also among his fiercest detractors.

“I have to be honest: I’ve never liked him much,” Trump said about McCain in one address in Ohio that was nominally about a rise in manufacturing jobs.

Susan Sarandon spoke to David Bowie just a week before he died – but she can’t remember the conversation.

The ‘Thelma & Louise’ actress rekindled her friendship with her former lover – who she had a relationship with while filming ‘The Hunger’ in 1983 – in the months before he died of liver cancer in January 2016 but she admitted it is “frustrating” that she’s got no knowledge of the final words they exchanged because she was taking strong medication at the time while on the Greek island of Lesbos.

She said: “I wasn’t sleeping so I took a pretty strong sleep aid. And I had this dream that David had called me and that we’d had this conversation. Then later I thought, ‘Did he actually call me?’

“And I went to my phone and he had. But I have no recollection of what that conversation was.

“He died a week later. It’s all so frustrating.”

But the 75-year-old actress – who last saw the ‘Heroes’ singer at the premiere of his musical ‘Lazarus’ in New York in December 2015 – feels “so fortunate” that she was able to reconnect with her old flame and “said some things that needed to be said” in the months before he passed away.

She told the Mail on Sunday’s You magazine: “I was fortunate enough to be closer to him right before he died, the last couple of months. He did find me again. We talked to each other and said some things that needed to be said.

“I was so fortunate to be able to see him when he told me what was going on with him.”

Even after David passed away, Susan has stayed in touch with his widow Iman.

She said: “I love his wife Iman, someone who was so equal in stature to him.

“That was clearly who he was destined to be with. And I’ve kept in touch with her.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Senate is likely to take a procedural vote on Wednesday on whether to debate an overhaul of federal election law, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Monday as he urged Republicans not to block the measure.

“If there’s anything worthy of debate in this chamber, it should be protecting and strengthening our democracy,” Schumer, a Democrat, said of the bill to expand voters’ access to mail-in ballots and other steps.

If Republicans prevent debate on the bill, some Democrats are likely to urge Schumer to find a way around the Senate’s filibuster procedure that requires at least 60 votes in the evenly split, 100-member chamber for most legislation to advance.

Such ideas include exempting the measure from the filibuster. Others include requiring that senators stay in the chamber and talk until the filibuster is abandoned – the way it used to be done.

The bill is in response to voting restrictions passed in Republican-led states following former President Donald Trump’s repeated false claims he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden because of widespread electoral fraud.

His claims were rejected by multiple courts, state election officials and Trump’s own Justice Department.

Since late last year, a number of Republican-controlled states have enacted or advanced bills to tighten access to the polls and make it easier to challenge election results.

Democrats and voting rights advocates have denounced the measures as partisan power grabs that will make it harder for Black and Hispanic voters – important voting blocs for Democrats – to cast ballots.

Election experts have said voting fraud is rare in the United States.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Leslie Adler and Peter Cooney)

New York (AFP) – New York City lawmakers have voted to remove a statue of Thomas Jefferson, one of the United States’ founding fathers, from the council chambers because of his slave-owning past.

Latino and Black council members have for years demanded the removal, which comes amid fierce debate in the United States over what to do with statues deemed offensive to minority groups.

Their push was given impetus by last year’s nationwide racial justice protests following the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis.

City officials on Monday voted unanimously to remove the statue from council chambers, but delayed a decision on where to put it.

The statue is expected to be put in the New York Historical Society museum.

Jefferson held more than 600 slaves on his plantation in Virginia and fathered six children with one of them.

The third US president “embodies some of the most shameful parts of our country’s history,” councilwoman Adrienne Adams told the hearing, the New York Times reported.

In September, a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee that became a focal point of racial justice protests was removed from Richmond, the Virginia city that served as the capital of the pro-slavery South during the American Civil War.

By Patricia Zengerle and Jan Wolfe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Lawmakers probing the deadly Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol attack by supporters of Donald Trump will move on Tuesday toward bringing contempt of Congress charges against his longtime aide Steve Bannon over his refusal to cooperate.

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives Select Committee is expected to approve a report backing contempt charges against Bannon at a meeting Tuesday evening. That vote will pave the way for the entire House to vote on whether to recommend contempt charges, which could lead to criminal prosecution against Bannon.

Trump has urged Bannon and other former aides subpoenaed by the committee to reject its requests, claiming executive privilege. He filed a lawsuit on Monday, alleging the committee made an illegal, unfounded and overly broad request for his White House records.

The White House has argued that Trump has no legitimate privilege claim.

“The former president’s actions represented a unique – and existential – threat to our democracy that can’t be swept under the rug,” said spokesman Michael Gwin. “The constitutional protections of executive privilege should not be used to shield information that reflects a clear and apparent effort to subvert the Constitution itself.”

Legal experts also say Trump, as the former president, cannot lawfully use executive privilege to block subpoenas issued by the House committee.

The committee in a report made public on Monday argued that Bannon’s testimony and document production are crucial to the investigation, saying that Bannon made statements suggesting he knew ahead of time about “extreme events” on Jan. 6, when the U.S. Congress was scheduled to certify Democrat Joe Biden as the winner of the presidential election.

Bannon, according to the report, said, “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow,” the day before thousands of Trump supporters descended on the Capitol building, attacking police and raiding congressional offices, in an attempt to overturn Trump’s election defeat, which Trump falsely claimed was the result of widespread fraud.

The Select Committee’s nine members will take the preliminary step of voting on the contempt report in a public meeting scheduled for 7:30 p.m. EDT (2330 GMT) on Tuesday. The committee’s vote could be followed quickly by a full vote in the House, congressional aides said.

The committee, was created by House Democrats against the wishes of most Republicans. Just two of the committee’s nine members: Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, are Trump’s fellow Republicans.

Both have criticized the former president, which prompted Republican House members to remove Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, from her leadership position.

After Trump asked aides not to cooperate with the investigation, Bannon argued that he was shielded from the select committee’s subpoenas by executive privilege, a legal principle that protects many White House communications.

However, legal experts – and the committee – dispute that argument.

“Mr. Bannon has now willfully failed to both produce a single document and to appear for his scheduled deposition. The Select Committee believes that this willful refusal to comply with the Subpoena constitutes a violation of federal law,” the committee’s chairman, Bennie Thompson, said in a letter to Bannon’s attorney.

Bannon’s attorney, Robert Costello, did not respond to a request for comment on the letter.

Biden has also said the Justice Department should prosecute people who defy subpoenas.

There have been at least 600 arrests in connection with the assault, and the select committee has issued more than a dozen subpoenas.

Multiple courts, state election officials and members of Trump’s own administration have rejected Trump’s claims of election fraud as false.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle in Washington; Additional reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Scott Malone, Matthew Lewis, Leslie Adler and Giles Elgood)