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Published by Radar Online MEGA Donald Trump is gaining a daughter-in-law. His oldest child Donald Trump Jr. has secretly been engaged to Kimberly Guilfoyle for one year. The 44-year-old reportedly popped the question to the controversial former Fox News host last year, entering 2021 as the future Mr. and Mrs. Trump Jr. Daily Mail broke the story on Monday, posting photo evidence after their 2020 engagement. Somehow the duo has been keeping their wedding plans under wraps for a whole year, despite Donald Jr. giving Kimberly an almost 8-carat diamond ring. “Don and Kim got engaged on New Year's Eve 2020 – which is Don's birthday. They've been together for almost four years now and have been friends for 15 years,” a pal told the outlet. “They've kept it private for the past year as they settled into life in Florida after moving from New York,” the insider continued. “Both are focused on their children – they have six between them – and their work.” And while Trump, his son, and his future daughter-in-law have been holding onto this secret, their engagement is widely known among friends and family. “It's been an open secret for the past 12 months with everyone Kim runs into admiring her almost 8 carat diamond engagement ring,” the source added. In a photo of the couple from Donald Jr.'s 44th birthday last month, Kimberly is seen sporting the attention-grabbing diamond — and being almost 10-carats, it's hard to miss in the snap. She's not trying to hide it either. Posting her ring-baring hand on her hip, the controversial news personality clung to her fiancé for the festive photo. Showing the oversized rock is square-shaped without a halo or any other diamonds around it, Donald Jr. went for classic chic when he shopped for the perfect sparkler. Donald Trump's Children Ivanka & Donald Jr. Subpoenaed By New York AG As Part Of Ongoing Civil Investigation Against Father Their engagement news comes just hours after it was revealed Donald Jr. has been subpoenaed as part of the New York Attorney General Office's ongoing civil investigation into his father. He's not Trump's only child who has been called to testify either. Ivanka Trump has also been subpoenaed as part of the investigation to determine if the former president inflated the value of some of his organization's assets. The attorney general already subpoenaed Trump for testimony. The deadline is supposed to be January 7, but #45's legal team is attempting to crush his subpoena altogether. View the full article

Published by Radar Online MEGA Prince Andrew might lose royal privileges if he fails to win his fight in the sexual assault lawsuit brought by Virginia Roberts Giuffre. The report comes just days after his former associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, was found guilty of grooming and trafficking underage girls for her former boyfriend, convicted sex offenderJeffrey Epstein. MEGA According to the Sunday Times, royal advisers have discussed potential actions to be taken upon the prince if he loses his battle concerning Giuffre’s case. One of their plans was to ask the Duke of York to stop using his title as a British royal. An insider reportedly told the outlet, “If [Prince Andrew] loses the case, the question is what do you do with him? You can’t make him resign like you would a normal person, but he would be asked to put his dukedom into abeyance.” In addition, the courtiers would allegedly request Andrew to give up his remaining links to charities and cast him into a form of “internal exile” by the royal institution. MEGA As Radar previously reported, the prince faces legal troubles after Giuffre filed a lawsuit against him, claiming she was forced to have sex with the royal three times when she was only 17 years old. Andrew had maintained his innocence and denied the allegations despite some damning evidence, including a picture of them taken from inside Maxwell’s London house in 2001. However, the source from the palace also revealed it would be difficult to convince the Queen to strip Andrew of the Duke of York title as “it was held by her father, George VI, before he became king and she bestowed it on her favourite son. But he has disgraced that title.” The outlet also reported the prince is under pressure to surrender his nine military roles. The military chiefs allegedly believe it is no longer appropriate for Andrew to carry his honorary titles if he loses the suit. A spokesman from Buckingham Palace later responded to the claims regarding the title drop, stating, “This is speculation and the comments are without foundation. We would not comment on an ongoing legal matter.” MEGA Following Maxwell’s guilty verdict last week, Andrew’s legal team reportedly has been in crisis mode and “locked in emergency talks.” They were allegedly considering reaching out to one of Maxwell’s victims to aid him in his civil case with Giuffre. “Andrew’s US team immediately seized upon Carolyn‘s testimony,” a legal source claimed. “They believe she holds a smoking gun to any possible role Virginia played in Epstein’s pyramid scheme of abuse.” View the full article

=Buck Slip“Yes queen, go queen; Dip it like a Dairy Queen; Put your inhibitions in a big U-Haul; Goodwill Gucci; Where my Chattahoochies,”Told you this was coming a while back: And It’s kind of fun and certainly needed and timed well for the souther regions. “You’ve been living in black and white; All you need is a smoke and a rainbow” It’s hard not to run the chorus over with your tongue: “Yes queen, go queen; Dip it like a Dairy Queen; Put your inhibitions in a big U-Haul; Goodwill Gucci; Where my Chattahoochies,” And that seems to hit all the self-deprecating stereotypes for now. And delivered in a message of silliness and inclusion. And we all need a bit more of both at this point. [This post contains video, click to play] Y’all Means All by Miranda Lambert for Season 6 of Queer Eye [Verse 1] If your life is like a tornado You’ve been living in black and white All you need is a smoke and a rainbow Honey, let me give you a light Alright Let me give you a light [Chorus] Yes queen, go queen Dip it like a Dairy Queen Put your inhibitions in a big U-Haul Goodwill Gucci Where my Chattahoochies? Out in the country honey, y’all means all Y’all means all Mmm, y’all means all Hey [Verse 2] Maybe there’s a little scratch in your reflection Maybe your rhinestone lost its shine Just count on love and count your blessings Count on me, come on let’s ride Mmm I got a big ol’ bus so jump on and ride https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html Chorus] Yes queen, go queen Dip it like a dairy queen Put your inhibitions in a big U-Haul Goodwill Gucci Whеre my Chattahoochies? Out in the country honеy, y’all means all Y’all means all [Bridge] You can be born in Tyler, TX Raised with the Bible Belt If you’re torn between the why’s and exes You ain’t gotta play with the hand you’re dealt [Chorus] Yes queen, go queen Dip it like a Dairy Queen Put your inhibitions in a big U-Haul Goodwill Gucci Where my Chattahoochies? Out in the country honey, y’all means all Honey, y’all means all Yes queen, go queen Dip it like a Dairy Queen Put your inhibitions in a big U-Haul Goodwill Gucci Where my Chattahoochies? Out in the country honey, y’all means all Honey, y’all means all Honey, y’all means all Hey Published by The Boot After teasing a partnership with the new season of Queer Eye earlier in the week, Miranda Lambert dropped the full song, “Y’all Means All,” on Friday (Dec. 31), in tandem with the show’s season premiere. It’s a spunky, joyful anthem of acceptance and solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community, which Lambert says she co-wrote with frequent collaborators Shane McAnally and Luke Dick. McAnally has a special connection to the song’s subject matter, as he’s one of the few members of the mainstream country music industry who is openly gay. Lambert’s relationship to the song is a personal one, too: She got… Read More View the full article

Published by DPA Patients sick with Spanish flu in 1918 lie in beds at an emergency hospital at Camp Funston at Fort Riley military base in Kansas, US. The Spanish flu developed into the worst flu pandemic in history with three waves by 1920. Between 25 to 40 million people died worldwide. National Museum of Health and Medicine/dpa This started as a story about what happens after a pandemic ends. I pitched my editor on the idea in early May. Every adult in America could get a vaccine. Covid-19 numbers started to fall. If the Roaring ’20s came after the Spanish flu a century ago, did that mean we were on track for another Roaring ’20s now? Would “Hot Vax Summer give way to Decadent Gatsby Party Autumn? I started to dig in. A number of compelling parallels emerged: America 100 years ago had staggering income inequality. A booming stock market. Racial uprisings. Anti-immigrant sentiment. A one-term president plagued by scandals after he left office. Plenty of material for a story. Then the pandemic didn’t end. Vaccinations stalled. The delta variant fuelled new waves of infections, hospitalizations and deaths By September, some states had more hospitalized Covid-19 patients than they did during the winter surge. The economic outlook for this decade has gone from “champagne-soaked” to “room temperature.” In late November, the World Health Organization announced a new “variant of concern: omicron I called a meeting with my editor. I said I didn’t think it was a good time to write a story in which the premise was “this pandemic is over, now what?” The pandemic wasn’t ending. Would it ever? This is not humanity’s first time staring down a seemingly unstoppable disease. Pandemics (a disease affecting a large number of people in multiple countries or regions around the world, per the World Health Organization, epidemics (a disease affecting people in a country or region) and outbreaks (a sudden occurrence of an infectious disease) have plagued us throughout history. Just in the past century, we’ve survived a few. How did those end? And how might we get ourselves out of this one? Spanish flu How it started: Unclear, but probably not in Spain. It was a particularly deadly strain of H1N1 influenza and first took root in the U.S. in Kansas. The disease was so virulent and killed so many young people that if you heard “‘This is just ordinary influenza by another name,’ you knew that was a lie,” said John Barry, the author of “The Great Influenza.” There was “zero partisanship” over the virus, Barry said. If the flu did hit your town, it hit hard: A young person could wake up in the morning feeling well and be dead 24 hours later. Half the people who died of the flu in 1918 were in their 20s and 30s. “It was a spooky time,” said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. So how did we, as a species, beat the Spanish flu? We didn’t. We survived it. It torched through individual communities until it ran out of people to infect. A third of the world’s population was believed to have contracted the Spanish flu during that pandemic, and it had a case-fatality rate of as high as 10-20 per cent globally. Roughly 675,000 people in America died out of a population of 103.2 million, a number recently surpassed by Covid-19 victims of a 2020 US population of 329.5 million. Flu vaccines wouldn’t be developed until the 1930s and wouldn’t become widely available for another decade. Ultimately, the virus went through a process called attenuation. Basically, it got less bad. We still have descendent strains of the Spanish flu floating around today. It’s endemic, not a pandemic. As a society, we accept a certain amount of death from known diseases. The normal seasonal flu usually kills less than 0.1 per cent of people who contract it. Deaths have been between 12,000 and 52,000 people in the US annually for the past decade. The regular seasonal flu is both less contagious and less deadly than Covid-19. That people were washing hands, working from home and socially distancing in the winter 2020 flu season likely contributed to the fact that it was a comparably light flu season Though business and school closures weren’t enough to stave off the devastating winter surge of Covid-19, the measures were sufficient to keep the flu at bay. One strain may have been completely extinguished As places reopen and people feel more confident about socializing and traveling again, the flu could make a calamitous comeback. (By the way, have you gotten your flu shot yet?) How it ended: Endemic Polio How it started:The first documented polio epidemic in the United States was in 1894. Outbreaks occurred throughout the first half of the 20th century, primarily killing children and leaving many more paralyzed. Polio reached pandemic levels by the 1940s. There were more than 600,000 cases of polio in the United States in the 20th century, and nearly 60,000 deaths — a case fatality rate of 9.8 per cent. In 1952 alone, there were 57,628 reported cases of polio resulting in 3,145 deaths. “Polio was every mother’s scourge,” Benjamin said. “People were afraid to death of polio.” Polio was highly contagious: In a household with an infected adult or child, 90 per cent to 100 per cent of susceptible people would develop evidence in their blood of also having been infected. Polio is not spread through the air — transmission occurs from oral-oral infection (say, sharing a drinking glass), or by “what’s nicely called hand-fecal,” Paula Cannon, a virology professor at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, told me. “People poop it out, and people get it on their hands and they make you a sandwich.” Polio, like Covid-19, could have devastating long-term effects even if you survived the initial infection. President Franklin Roosevelt was among the thousands of people who lived with permanent paralysis from polio. Others spent weeks, years, or the rest of their lives in iron lungs. Precautions were taken during the polio pandemic. Schools and public pools closed. Then, in 1955, a miracle: a vaccine. A two-dose course of the polio vaccine proved to be about 90 per cent effective — similar to the effectiveness of our current Covid-19 vaccines. Vaccine technology was still relatively new, and the polio vaccine was not without side effects. A small number of people who got that vaccine got polio from it. Another subset of recipients developed Guillain-Barre syndrome, a noncontagious autoimmune disorder that can cause paralysis or nerve damage. A botched batch killed some of the people who received it. But there were no masses of polio anti-vaxxers. It was a “whole sense of the greater good, that this was the only way out of this terrible scourge,” Cannon said. “You would have had to have been a psychopathic monster to not want to be part of the solution.” Benjamin said the polio vaccine campaign became a moment of national unity: “Jonas Salk and the folks that solved the polio problem were national heroes.” By 1979, polio was eradicated in the United States. How it ended: Vaccination Smallpox How it started:The disease had been observed in the Eastern Hemisphere dating to as early as 1157 B.C., and European colonizers first brought smallpox to North America’s previously unexposed Native population in the early 1500s. A 2019 study suggested smallpox and other viruses introduced by colonizers killed as much as 90 per cent of the indigenous population in some areas. Globally, smallpox is estimated to have killed more than 300 million people just in the 20th century. The case fatality rate of variola major, which caused the majority of smallpox infections, is around 30 per cent. Outbreaks continued in North America through the centuries after it arrived here, at one point infecting half the population of the city of Boston. We fought back by trying to infect people with a weakened version of it, long before vaccines existed. An enslaved man named Onesimus is believed to have introduced the concept of smallpox inoculation to North America in 1721 when he told slave owner Cotton Mather that he had undergone it in West Africa. Mather tried to convince Boston doctors to consider inoculating residents during that outbreak, to limited success. One doctor who inoculated 287 patients reported only 2 per cent of them died of smallpox, compared with a 14.8 per cent death rate among the general population. In 1777, George Washington ordered troops who had not already had the disease to undergo a version of inoculation in which pus from a smallpox sore was introduced into an open cut. Most people who were inoculated developed a mild case of smallpox, then developed natural immunity. Some died, though at a far lower rate compared with other ways of contracting the disease. The practice of inoculation was controversial enough — some skeptics said it was not sufficiently tested, some argued it was doctors “playing God,” others theorized that it was a conspiracy from slaves to trick white slave owners into killing themselves — that it was banned in several colonies. Edward Jenner first demonstrated the effectiveness of his newly created smallpox vaccine in England in 1796. Vaccination spread throughout the world, and deaths from smallpox became rarer over time: In a century, smallpox went from being responsible for 1 in 13 deaths in London to about 1 in 100. But while early vaccines reduced smallpox’s power, it still existed: An outbreak hit New York City in 1947. It demonstrated that the vaccines were not 100 per cent effective in everyone forever: 47-year-old Eugene Le Bar, the first fatality, had a smallpox vaccine scar. Israel Weinstein, the city’s health commissioner, held a news conference urging all New Yorkers to get vaccinated against smallpox, whether for the first time or what we would now call a “booster shot.” The mayor and President Harry Truman got vaccinated on camera. In less than one month, 6.35 million New Yorkers were vaccinated, in a city of 7.8 million. The final toll of the New York outbreak: 12 cases of smallpox, resulting in 2 deaths. Our country’s final outbreak affected eight people in the Rio Grande Valley in 1949. In 1959, the World Health Organization announced a plan to eradicate smallpox globally with vaccinations. The disease was declared eradicated in 1980. Of all the diseases our species has tackled, “the only one we’ve ever been really successful to totally eradicating is smallpox,” Benjamin said. The only remaining smallpox pathogens exist in laboratories. How it ended: Vaccination HIV/AIDS How it started:In 1981, the CDC announced the first cases of what we would later call AIDS. Roughly half of Americans who contracted HIV in the early 1980s died of an HIV/AIDS-related condition within two years. Deaths from HIV peaked in the 1990s, with roughly 50,000 in 1995, and have decreased steadily since then: As of 2019, roughly 1.2 million Americans are HIV-positive; there were 5,044 deaths attributed to HIV that year. The Reagan administration did not take HIV seriously for years. Unlike Covid-19, which was quickly identified as a respiratory disease, HIV spread for years before scientists knew for sure how it was transmitted. Gay activists who encouraged their community to use condoms in the early 1980s were criticized as “sex-negative.” Today, we know how to prevent the spread of HIV, and treatments for it have progressed to the point where early intervention can make the virus completely undetectable. “If you’re HIV positive, the HIV pandemic never went away for you,” said Cannon, who’s spent much of her career studying the virus. She described it as a “great irony” that we identified the cause of Covid-19 and developed a vaccine within a year, only to have people refuse it: “Anybody with HIV would tell you that the opposite is true for HIV, where despite decades now of research, we have not been able to come up with vaccines that work against this shapeshifter of a virus that is HIV, and people would be desperately pleased if there were vaccines.” Around 700,000 people in the U.S. have died of HIV-related illnesses in the 40 years since the disease appeared. In less than two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, we’ve surpassed 820,000 Covid-19 deaths. How it ended: Endemic SARS How it started:SARS first appeared in China in 2002 before making its way to the United States and 28 other countries. Severe acute respiratory syndrome — quickly shortened to SARS in headlines and news coverage — is caused by a coronavirus named SARS-CoV, or SARS-associated coronavirus. Covid-19 is caused by a virus so similar that it’s called SARS-CoV-2. Globally, more than 8,000 people contracted SARS during the outbreak, and 916 died. (By comparison, there were 10 times more cases of Covid-19 than that registered globally by the end of February 2020.) One hundred fifteen cases of SARS were suspected in the United States; only eight people had laboratory-confirmed cases of the disease, and none of them died. Like Covid-19, fatality rates from SARS were very low for young people — less than 1 per cent for people under 25 — up to a more than 50 per cent rate for people over 65. Overall, the case fatality rate was 11 per cent. Public anxiety was widespread, including in areas unaffected by SARS. SARS and Covid-19 have a lot in common. But the diseases — and the way the government responded to them — weren’t exactly the same, said Benjamin, who worked for the CDC during the SARS epidemic. “There wasn’t asymptomatic spread. Early on we had a functional test. We had a public health system that was in much better shape than it is today. All those things went wrong this time,” he said. “And [Covid-19] turned out to be much more infectious, it turned out to have asymptomatic spread. … [In 2020] you had a public health system which wasn’t ready for prime time because it hadn’t been invested in.” Conversely, he said, the response to SARS was robust and immediate. The WHO issued a global alert about an unknown and severe form of pneumonia in Asia on March 12, 2003. The CDC activated its Emergency Operations Center by March 14, and issued an alert for travelers entering the U.S. from Hong Kong and parts of China the next day. Pandemic planning and guidance went into effect by the end of that month. “When [public health organizations] had the actual genetic sequence mapped out and then they made a test for it, they rapidly got that test out to state and local health departments, they began screening, doing surveillance, we contained it very quickly, we communicated effectively to the public, and it worked,” he said. In the case of SARS, the disease stopped spreading before a vaccine or cure could be created. Scientists knew another coronavirus could emerge that was more contagious. They laid the groundwork for developing the Covid-19 vaccines we have now. How it ended: Died out after being controlled by public health measures Swine flu How it started:Both the Spanish flu and swine flu were caused by the same type of virus: influenza A H1N1. Ultimately, according to the CDC, there were about 60.8 million cases of swine flu in the U.S. from April 2009 to April 2010, with 274,304 hospitalizations and 12,469 deaths — a case fatality rate of about 0.02 per cent. So there were millions more cases of swine flu than there were of Covid-19 in the same time period, but a fraction of the fatalities. Eighty percent of swine flu deaths were in people younger than 65. It was first detected in California on April 15, 2009, and the CDC and the Obama administration declared public health emergencies before the end of that month. As with Covid-19, hospital visits spiked. Hundreds of schools closed down temporarily. In Texas, a children’s hospital set up tents in the parking lot to handle emergency room overflow; several hospitals in North Carolina banned children from visiting. Hospitals near Colorado Springs, Colorado, reported a 30 per cent increase in flu visits. Some 300,000 doses of liquid Tamiflu for children were released from the national pandemic stockpile. In the same month cases were first detected, the CDC started identifying the virus strain for a potential vaccine. The first flu shots with H1N1 protections went into arms in October 2009. WHO declared the swine flu pandemic over in August 2010. But like Spanish flu, swine flu never completely went away. How it ended: Endemic Ebola How it started: From 2014 to 2016, 28,616 people in West Africa had Ebola, and 11,310 died — a 39.5 per cent case fatality rate. Despite widespread fears about it spreading here — including close to 100 tweets from the man who would be president when the Covid-19 pandemic began — only two people contracted Ebola on U.S. soil, and neither died. So how did we escape Ebola? Unlike Covid-19, Ebola isn’t transmitted in the air, and there’s no asymptomatic spread. It spreads through the bodily fluids of people actively experiencing symptoms, either directly or through bedding and other objects they’ve touched. If you haven’t been within 3 feet of a person with Ebola, you have almost no risk of getting it. Part of the problem in Africa, Benjamin said, was that families traditionally washed the bodies of the deceased, exposing themselves to infected fluids. And health care workers who treated patients without proper protective equipment or awareness of heightened safety procedures were at risk. Once adequate equipment was delivered to affected areas and precautions were taken by health care workers and families of the victims, the disease could be controlled. People needed to temporarily change their behavior to respond to the public health crisis, and they did. While this particular outbreak ended in 2016, it’s very possible we will see another Ebola event in the future. An Ebola vaccine was approved by the FDA in 2019. How it ended: Subsided after being controlled by public health measures How will Covid end? Big picture, “pandemics end because the disease is unable to transmit itself through people or other vectors that allow the transmission of the disease,” Benjamin said. The most likely outcome at this point is that Covid-19 is here to stay, he said: “I think most people now think that it will be endemic for a while.” On Twitter, his colleagues in epidemiology and public health seem to agree. Covid-19 has a lot going for it, as far as viruses go: Unlike Ebola and SARS, it can be spread by people who don’t realize they have it. Unlike smallpox, it can jump species, infecting animals and then potentially reinfecting us. Unlike polio, one person can unwittingly spread it to a room full of people, and not enough people are willing to get vaccinated at once to stop it in its tracks. It’s less contagious than swine flu, and less deadly than Ebola, landing it in a sort of perverse sweet spot where it infects a lot of people but doesn’t kill enough of them to run out of victims. For many people, it’s mild enough that it convinces others they don’t have to take the disease or precautions against it seriously. No one thought that about smallpox or Ebola. In a conversation I had with Cannon for a different story in May 2020, she told me if someone were designing a virus with the maximum capacity to succeed, it would look a lot like this coronavirus. “One of the really superpower things about this virus is its stealthiness,” she told me then. “So you can feel fine, you can go hang out with friends and not obey the 6-foot rule and the next morning you feel like death and you’re like, ‘oh crap.'” Back then, she contrasted it with the way we shut down SARS: “The reason we could stop it is everybody who had SARS, you were only infectious while you were sick. You woke up one day feeling like death and that was the day you were infectious. Infected people couldn’t walk among us. … With this coronavirus, they walk amongst us.” So what happens next? In some populations, enough people will get vaccinated to achieve something like herd immunity. In others, it will burn through the population until everyone’s had it, and either achieves naturally gained immunity (which confers less long-term protection than vaccination) or dies. People still die from influenza and HIV in the United States; a disease becoming endemic isn’t exactly a happy ending. “We tolerate the tragedy a lot better when it’s a disease that we’ve seen before,” Benjamin said. “It is less scary to us.” Based on where we are now, “I don’t think Covid-19 will ever go away,” Cannon said. We’re still learning about the omicron variant. Early reports out of South Africa suggest it may be a more contagious but milder version of the disease, though it’s too early to say for sure. In a perfect world, Covid-19 would go away entirely; with that possibility almost certainly off the table, an attenuated strain that displaces the delta variant and turns Covid-19 into an illness that rarely requires hospitalization is perhaps the best we can hope for at this point. How it ends: A combination of vaccine– and naturally gained immunity, attenuation, availability of rapid testing, and improvements in treatment for active cases could turn it into what skeptics wrongly called it to begin with: a bad cold or flu. Experts assume the current pandemic won’t end suddenly, but will linger on before the virus finally becomes endemic. Gareth Fuller/PA Wire/dpa View the full article

Published by DPA If you’re a smoker, your goal should be to stop, even if it means first switching to another harmful addiction like vaping, says vascular specialist Martin Storck. Franziska Gabbert/dpa Switching to vaping can be a safe first step on the way to giving up smoking, says one vascular physician – provided giving up tobacco does not succeed by other means. “The e-cigarette route involves an immediate massive risk reduction,” says Professor Martin Storck of the German Society for Vascular Surgery and Vascular Medicine, arguing that the goal should be to stop smoking, even if it means switching to another addiction. “Smoking is the most important risk factor for the development and progression of atherosclerosis,” says Storck, “with the consequences of stroke, heart attack or amputation – especially in diabetics.” And yet while they are less harmful than cigarettes, they’re far from harmless, and e-cigarettes are also addictive substances. What’s more, the vapour you inhale also contains substances that are harmful to your health, and little is known about the long-term consequences. For those considering switching to vaping, vascular physician Storck points to reviews by the Cochrane organisation, which campaigns for evidence-based health care and evaluates available literature. These studies have shown that the vapour from e-cigarettes and tobacco heaters contains significantly fewer harmful substances than cigarette smoke. “The order of magnitude is 90 to 95 per cent less.” Therefore, a 100 per cent switch to e-cigarettes would be an option for smokers who otherwise would not be able to quit smoking, Storck says. “Of course, complete quitting smoking remains the primary goal,” Storck clarifies, and e-cigarettes are only the lesser of two evils. The problem: “Many smokers don’t even want to quit at first. After decades of smoking in some cases, it is difficult to give up smoking completely overnight – for example after a heart attack or pneumonia.” In the view of the physician and his professional association, switching to e-cigarettes can at least reduce certain health risks. If you’re a smoker, your goal should be to stop, even if it means first switching to another harmful addiction like vaping, says vascular specialist Martin Storck. Mascha Brichta/dpa If you’re a smoker, your goal should be to stop, even if it means first switching to another harmful addiction like vaping, says vascular specialist Martin Storck. M. Kümmerle/Städtisches Klinikum Karlsruhe/dpa View the full article

Published by DPA Psychology experts say the pandemic has been accompanied by an epidemic of poor mental health. The crisis is showing few signs of improvement in 2022, and experts say many will need to consider seeking therapeutic help. Julian Stratenschulte/dpa As we enter a new year laden with uncertainty, our mental health and sense of well-being are being tested again. It’s OK (and normal) to fail these tests once in a while. In the last year, the pandemic has opened up conversations about how to provide more widespread and culturally sensitive mental health support for all ages, especially after US Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy warned of an emerging youth mental health crisis in December. Why is it so important to normalize these discussions? Loretta Whitson, executive director of the California Association of School Counselors, shared a message she recently received about a young girl who went to see a school counselor after attending a schoolwide mental health presentation and is now in much-needed therapy. “‘You gave that 12-year-old the courage to save herself,'” she read from the text message. “I love that,” she said. “The courage to save yourself.” Learning to prioritize and manage your mental well-being — especially when the trauma is real and being anxious makes sense — is a process that requires patience. We’ve broken down the basics of mental healthcare for those who have found the courage to seek help but may not realize what their options are. There are many oft-cited recommendations for improving your mood, including exercising, maintaining a healthy diet, getting enough sleep and meditating. But different people have different socioeconomic and environmental stressors — and it’s often beneficial to connect with people who relate to your particular struggles and can share coping strategies that have worked for them. Here are some of the insights we’ve gained from covering mental health over the last year. 1 – Find mental health care wherever (andhowever) you can Individual sessions with a therapist are effective for a lot of people. For others, they’re expensive, time-consuming or impractical. But therapy can come in many different forms, and if you can, make it a habit and priority to manage your mental health before you reach a breaking point. Maybe you could use a dose of (curated) TikTok therapy to learn some simple skills — whether it’s therapist Courtney Tracy (@the.truth.doctor) explaining different types of anxiety psychologist Raquel Martin showing a grounding technique she uses with her patients or Latinos bonding over how they deal with first-generation trauma. Maybe what you need is to find your community and tell — or hear — your story. Comedian D’Lo told The Times about the workshops he runs that help South Asian immigrants tell their coming-out stories. He also performs autobiographical solo shows, which can be a therapeutic experience for both him and his fans. “It is the vehicle of comedy that allows people to look at their own story through my story and not feel like it’s so overwhelming,” he said. If you can’t afford professional help, you can look for other options. Your workplace, school or place of worship may have free sessions with counselors. There are hotlines and warmlines to call. There are also mental health smartphone apps — and guidance for how to pick a good one. If you have insurance, you might start with the ones your insurer recommends or provides for free. 2 – Personalize your mental health care You need to rest and destress, but what does resting and destressing look like for you? Does it look like sitting in a cross-legged position and chanting mantras, or does it look like hiking up to the highest peak in your area? Does it look like curling up in a blanket and reading, tending to your garden, getting to the ocean to surf or playing your favourite video games? Find the combination that leaves you feeling rejuvenated. Similarly, if you’re looking for a therapist, what kind of therapist would be best at understanding your challenges? Have you had to say goodbye to a loved one in hospice care? Are you having grief linked to climate change? Are you a teacher who is feeling burnt out? A therapist’s job is to help you with your goals for mental well-being. So first, figure out your goals. 3 – Destigmatizing mental health challenges can start with you 2021 was the year that athletes such as Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka showed us it’s OK to not be OK. Sharing our own stories — even if it’s just to our small circle of loved ones — can encourage empathy and help others feel less alone. This includes when we are talking to young kids about difficult topics. The American Psychological Association encourages parents to acknowledge their own feelings and emotions to show that they’re human. And don’t forget that destigmatizing mental health challenges includes giving ourselves grace when we’re struggling. Dave Leon, a therapist and founder of the mental health nonprofit Painted Brain, says he’s rarely trying to change the patient. Instead, he’s trying to help them change the environment around them. “What I’ve seen, especially with my own experience with depression — and with people with anxiety, people with personality disorders — is that a lot of it is a very realistic reaction to the crazy, insane contradictions that we’re expected to make to live in this world,” he said. 4 – Learn how to relax your body quickly when faced with stress Marlene Valter, psychologist and founder of the mental health company AnaVault, acknowledged that not everyone is able to take a break or walk away when something stressful happens. Valter suggested getting in the habit of taking five to 10 seconds to scan your body for tension from the top of your head to your toes, relaxing all your muscles along the way. And you can do that throughout the day, 50 times a day, she said. “Now when you’re facing a stressor, a deadline, a difficult boss or co-worker or family member, you can take five seconds to relax and face the trauma and forever change the wiring of your brain,” said Valter. “This gets you off of an old hamster wheel of anxiety.” At the end of the day, she said, it’s not about living a stress-free life. It’s about tackling your challenges with a clear mind. 5 – Always feel free to reassess If whatever you’re doing to manage your mental health isn’t working, try something else, whether it’s a new form of self-care or another therapist. “I always tell my clients during the consult that the first few sessions are going to be assessing fit,” Anjali Alimchandani, a psychologist and an advisory board member of the National Queer & Trans Therapists of Color Network told The Times. “You might feel good with me but, as we are talking more, find that it’s not the right fit, and that’s absolutely OK.” “If a therapist doesn’t work out, that doesn’t mean therapy is not a good fit,” David Rudesill, a psychotherapist at Cal State Los Angeles, said. “Find another one. Some people do this for several sessions, or even for years, and then they drop out, they stop going or they make an excuse, and it’s unfortunate, because something didn’t change that they wanted to change.” Reassessing your situation, your decisions or your purpose can also be helpful. Therapist Brian Torres works with clients in the entertainment industry who feel trapped, and he encourages them to consider a career Plan B, even if it’s just as a thought exercise. “If you start this inquiry about what else is there, you may feel less stuck,” Torres said. “I try to just slowly make room for what else could bring you happiness.” View the full article

Published by AFP Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban listens while US President Donald Trump speaks to the press before a meeting in the Oval Office on May 13, 2019 Washington (AFP) – Former US president Donald Trump on Monday enthusiastically backed the reelection of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a hero of the far-right who has been accused of creeping authoritarianism. In a statement issued along the lines of his frequent blessings to Republican candidates in primary elections at home, Trump wrote that the Hungarian leader has his “Complete support and Endorsement” in elections expected in April. “He has done a powerful and wonderful job in protecting Hungary, stopping illegal immigration, creating jobs, trade, and should be allowed to continue to do so in the upcoming Election. He is a strong leader and respected by all,” Trump wrote. Trump welcomed Orban to the White House in 2019, a symbolic acceptance for the prime minister who frequently clashes with the European Union leadership and was snubbed both by President Joe Biden and Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama. Some Trump administration officials argued at the time that the goal was to keep in the Western fold a leader who had flirted with Russia, and then secretary of state Mike Pompeo made a point of meeting activists who ran afoul of Orban during a visit to Budapest. But Orban has increasingly been hailed both by Trump’s wing of the Republican Party and European far-right leaders such as France’s Marine Le Pen, especially over his refusal to accept refugees. Tucker Carlson, a Fox News host close to Trump, broadcast last year from Budapest and was given an interview with Orban as well as a helicopter tour of a border fence. Orban has also sought to mobilize support on opposition to LGBTQ rights, with a ban on “promotion and display” of homosexuality and a related referendum expected on the same day as the election. Orban, who has been in charge since 2010, faces a potentially serious challenge from Peter Marki-Zay, who describes himself as a traditional Catholic conservative and has vowed to scrap homophobic laws if elected. View the full article

Published by Reuters MOSCOW (Reuters) – China, Russia, Britain, the United States and France have agreed that a further spread of nuclear arms and a nuclear war should be avoided, according to a joint statement by the five nuclear powers published by the Kremlin on Monday. It said that the five countries – who are the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – consider it their primary responsibility to avoid war between the nuclear states and to reduce strategic risks, while aiming to work with all countries to create an atmosphere of security. “We declare there could be no winners in a nuclear war, it should never be started,” the Russian-language version of the statement read. “As the use of nuclear arms would have far-reaching consequences, we also confirm that nuclear arms – as long as they exist – should serve defensive aims, deterrence against aggression and prevention of war.” France also released the statement, underscoring that the five powers reiterated their determination for nuclear arms control and disarmament. They would continue bilateral and multilateral approaches to nuclear arms control, it said. The statement comes amid increased geopolitical tensions between Moscow and Western nations over concerns about Russia’s military build-up near neighbouring Ukraine. Moscow says it can move its army around its own territory as it deems necessary. Last Thursday U.S. President Joe Biden told his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that a possible move on Ukraine will draw sanctions and an increased U.S. presence in Europe, where tensions are high after Russia’s military buildup at the border. (Reporting by Andrey Ostroukh; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Angus MacSwan) View the full article

Published by Radar Online Mega Prince Andrew looked worried and agitated as he made his way to Queen Elizabeth's on New Year's Day. The 61-year-old disgraced royal has been holed up in Windsor palace in crisis mode with his legal team after his pal Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty of sex trafficking minors. Despite desperately trying to strategize their next move in the Virginia Roberts Giuffre's sex abuse lawsuit, Andrew took a break to have lunch with his mother — but he couldn't hide the stress on his face. Prince Andrew May Lose Royal Title, Get Thrown Into 'Internal Exile' If He Loses Fight In Virginia Robert's Assault Case Mega Flanked by his detectives and security, the Queen's embattled son was caught in the driver's seat of his expensive Range Rover. Driving down the long pathway to his mom's home, Andrew looked upset behind the steering wheel. When he spotted the paparazzi, he appeared to only become more upset. Changing his body language almost immediately, Andrew slumped over and attempted to hide from the shutterbugs while continuing to make the short trek to the Queen's palace. Besides being protected from the front by his walking guards, Andrew was also safeguarded from the back by his team, who were driving an almost identical SUV. Andrew's nervous and stressed mannerisms say it all. Hours after his outing to the Queen's, it was revealed his alleged deal with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is set to be made public. Mega The royal has been accused of reaping the benefits of Epstein's sex trafficking pyramid scandal. Andrew is currently battling Roberts Giuffre, who sued him in August, claiming she was ordered to have sex with him by Epstein when she was just 17 years old. Andrew has denied her allegations, but whatever alleged deal he had with Epstein might blow his cover. According to reports, a New York judge is expected to unseal a confidential agreement between the two powerful men on Monday. This could throw a huge wrench into his legal team's strategy and may push the lawsuit into a full-on trial. Andrew's attorneys will make a last-ditch effort to get Roberts Giuffre's lawsuit thrown out on Tuesday. They call her accusations “baseless.” Mega View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Sam Asghari plans to keep “reaching for the stars”. The 27-year-old actor – who is engaged to Britney Spears – has revealed he doesn’t have “humble goals” and he’s determined to realise his career ambitions. He shared: “Where would I love to be in five to ten years from now on? When it comes to my career, I do not have humble goals and skies the limit, so don’t expect for anything less. I will be reaching for the stars. “We’re going to get there. With a lot of hard work and a lot of preparation and a lot of sleepless nights, we will get there.” Sam also revealed that he and Britney, 40, share a passion for horseback riding. The actor described horses as “majestic animals”, and explained that it’s a great way for them to bond as a couple. Speaking about their passion, Sam told HollywoodLife.com: “We love going horseback riding. It is such a fun exercise and a great way to bond, and also just a great date, regardless. “Horses are majestic animals. They are so massive, and they are so peaceful at the same time. I personally love horses. They are one of my favourite animals. “They are just so majestic and there is something about them, their energy, that is so peaceful.” Meanwhile, an insider recently revealed that Britney is planning to make her comeback in 2022. The pop star had her conservatorship terminated in 2021, and Britney is now focusing on her career comeback. The source explained: “Britney is actively eyeing different brand deals and entertainment opportunities. Several brands have reached out to her with amazing offers and nothing is off the table. “She’s excited to put her businesswoman hat on in the new year and explore different ventures that weren’t available to her in the past.” Sam Asghari With Britney on Towleroad Janet Jackson Trailer Drops For A Janet Doc Like You Never Did See; Yes, Michael’s Scandals Hurt ‘by Association’, But It’s A Minor Point : WATCH More Berlin nightclubs launch vaccination week More Adele, Stallone Home? Buff Bezos; Billie Jean King; Hannaham ‘Pilot Imposter’ Earns Best Reviews; Orangutan Drives Cart of ‘Dreams’: HOT Links More Omicron evades immunity better than Delta, Danish study finds More Ashli Babbitt: Rorschach test for attack on US Capitol More Kim Cattrall calls for suicide prevention on late brother’s 59th birthday More Prince Andrew accuser’s deal with Epstein to be made public as part of civil suit More Cassandra Peterson, Best Known For playing ‘Elvira Mistress of the Dark’ Jokes About Getting Dolly Parton to Play Her For Biopic More Twitter Blocks Marjorie Taylor Greene Permanently; Personal Account Shut Down for Repeated Violations of Covid Misinformation More Load More View the full article

Janet Jackson Trailer on Towleroad Berlin nightclubs launch vaccination week More Adele, Stallone Home? Buff Bezos; Billie Jean King; Hannaham ‘Pilot Imposter’ Earns Best Reviews; Orangutan Drives Cart of ‘Dreams’: HOT Links More Omicron evades immunity better than Delta, Danish study finds More Ashli Babbitt: Rorschach test for attack on US Capitol More Kim Cattrall calls for suicide prevention on late brother’s 59th birthday More Prince Andrew accuser’s deal with Epstein to be made public as part of civil suit More Cassandra Peterson, Best Known For playing ‘Elvira Mistress of the Dark’ Jokes About Getting Dolly Parton to Play Her For Biopic More Twitter Blocks Marjorie Taylor Greene Permanently; Personal Account Shut Down for Repeated Violations of Covid Misinformation More bell hooks Will Never Leave Us – ‘When I Need To Be Reminded Of How To Love And Fight, I Turn To Her Work’; Start With 3 Books More Load More View the full article

Published by DPA People wait to get their Covid-19 vaccination doses at the “Sage Beach” club. Berlin nightclubs launched a week-long vaccination campaign on Monday, making good on a pledge made last year by the German capital’s nightlife venues. Jörg Carstensen/dpa A Berlin nightclub launched a week-long vaccination campaign on Monday, making good on a pledge made last year by the German capital’s nightlife venues. Sage Beach began vaccinating, and other venues would be following suit over the course of the week, Lutz Leichsenring, spokesman for the club committee, said. The campaign had “started well,” Leichsenring said, with half the 4,500 openings taken up by online reservation. Dancing is currently banned in Berlin. The capital’s clubs have repeatedly issued calls for the population to get their shots and organized a “long vaccination night” during the summer, with music played in the vaccination centres. “We want to get through the pandemic together and make our contribution,” Leichsenring said. At least three other clubs are joining the campaign, in which appointments can be booked online, whether for first, second or booster vaccinations. Many Berlin clubs have closed their doors, taking the view that the ban on dancing has made paying business impossible. There was considerable unhappiness at government policy, Leichsenring said. He noted that the clubs performed an important social function. The committee has previously called for dancing to be allowed for patrons who have undergone a recent test for the coronavirus. According to the official disease control body, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), 71.8 per cent of the population of the city-state of Berlin have received two shots of vaccine, in line with the national figure of 71.2 per cent. People wait to get their Covid-19 vaccination doses at the “Sage Beach” club. Berlin nightclubs launched a week-long vaccination campaign on Monday, making good on a pledge made last year by the German capital’s nightlife venues. Jörg Carstensen/dpa View the full article

Did you miss the good news in 2021 — Pajiba Billie Jena King, Adele’s New Home? The Rock and Vin Diesel… Links Ariana Grande Surprised 'Don't Look Up' Director By Improvising Some of Her Best Lines“Full Forensic Audit” Of Texas Election Finds NothingSam Asghari Opens Up About His Relationship With Fiancee Britney SpearsLeslie Jordan accepts Tik Tok challengeThe Richest 'Queer Eye' Cast Members Ranked from Lowest to Highest (& the Wealthiest Have Net Worths of $6 Million!)Billy Eichner Flaunts Fit Physique in Hot New Shirtless Selfie!Anderson Cooper Will Host A Brand New Show For CNN+300 Stars Who Are 80+ And Still With UsAndy Cohen Got A Bit Messy On-Air During CNN’s NYE LIVE Celebration'Saturday Night Live' to Re-Air Episode with Betty White as Host in Honor of Her Death James Hannaham by James Hannaham ‘Pilot Impostor’ proves that James Hannaham is one of America’s most inventive writers — Washington Post” “James Hannaham’s first two novels, 2009’s “God Says No” and the PEN/Faulkner Award-winning “Delicious Foods” of 2015, vaulted him to the top tier of inventive American writers. Now, the publication of “Pilot Impostor” should secure his place at the apex. Hannaham is not only creative or stunningly gifted or intellectual or supremely original, but all those distinctions at once. … It goes on If you order it via this link we might earn pocket change. 2010’s Betty White Lines … Go Through My Mind [This post contains video, click to play] Buff Bezos Prime; Ariana Grande Improv; Texas Audit Zilch; Sam Asghari, 300 Living Stars over 80 years; Richest Queer Eye? Yup Buff Bezos is on Omg.blog OMG, Jeff Bezos is now buff because of Tom Cruise’s trainerOMG, have you heard? Phew! Chrissy Teigen posted an eyebrow transplant update to InstagramA History Of Gay Rap + Golden Globe Noms Are Here (And Snub Rita Moreno) + Gay Dad Threesome + Colton Haynes Launches Memoir + MORE! — 12-PACKAndy Cohen Got A Bit Messy On-Air During CNN’s NYE LIVE Celebration300 Stars Who Are 80+ And Still With UsThe Richest 'Queer Eye' Cast Members Ranked from Lowest to Highest (& the Wealthiest Have Net Worths of $6 Million!)Leslie Jordan accepts Tik Tok challengeSam Asghari Opens Up About His Relationship With Fiancee Britney Spears“Full Forensic Audit” Of Texas Election Finds NothingAriana Grande Surprised 'Don't Look Up' Director By Improvising Some of Her Best LinesDefinitely the Most Chill Orangutan Dreams Driving Golf Cart set to Fleetwood Mac All Week. View the full article

Published by Reuters COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – The Omicron coronavirus variant is better at circumventing vaccinated peoples’ immunity than the Delta variant, according to a Danish study published last week, helping explain why Omicron is spreading more rapidly. Since the discovery of the heavily mutated Omicron variant in November, scientists have been racing to find out whether it causes less serious disease and why it appears more contagious than the previously dominating Delta variant. A virus can be more transmissible due to a number of reasons, such as the time it lingers in the air, its ability to latch onto cells, or its evasion of the body’s immune system. Investigating nearly 12,000 Danish households in mid-December, the scientists found that Omicron was 2.7 to 3.7 times more infectious than the Delta variant among vaccinated Danes. The study, conducted by researchers at University of Copenhagen, Statistics Denmark and Statens Serum Institut (SSI), suggests the virus is mainly spreading more rapidly because it is better at evading immunity obtained from vaccines. “Our findings confirm that the rapid spread of the Omicron (variant) primarily can be ascribed to the immune evasiveness rather than an inherent increase in the basic transmissibility,” the researchers said. The study has yet to be peer-reviewed. Seventy-eight percent of Danes have been fully vaccinated, while nearly 48% of those have received a third “boosted” shot. More than eight out of ten Danes have received Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine. The study also found that booster-vaccinated people are less likely to transmit the virus, regardless of the variant, than the unvaccinated. While more transmissible, the Omicron variant does seem to induce less serious disease, SSI’s technical director, Tyra Grove Krause, told local media on Monday. “While Omicron will still be able to put pressure on our healthcare system, everything indicates that it is milder than the Delta variant,” she said, adding the risk of being hospitalised with Omicron was half of that with Delta. That echoes the results of some other studies into Omicron. Out of a total of 93 people admitted to hospital due to COVID-19 from Omicron in late December, less than five were receiving intensive care, Danish data showed. “This may be what is going to lift us out of the pandemic, so that this becomes the last wave of corona,” Krause said. (Reporting by Nikolaj Skydsgaard; Editing by Mark Potter) View the full article

Published by AFP Ashli Babbitt is a freedom-fighting heroine to some in the United States, and a misguided conspiracy theorist to others Los Angeles (AFP) – A conspiracy-spouting extremist or a patriotic martyr? Ashli Babbitt, who was shot dead a year ago during the invasion of the US Capitol, is a Rorschach test for the deep political fault line that runs through the United States. An Air Force veteran who served in Iraq and voted for America’s first Black president, Babbitt died wrapped in a flag bearing the name of Donald Trump, the populist billionaire who still insists he won an election that he lost by a wide margin. Her journey of radical transformation mirrors that of many of the supporters of the real estate tycoon, who, on January 6, 2021, was desperately seeking to preserve his divisive presidency. That day, Congress was gathering to certify the election of Joe Biden as 46th president of the United States. Speaking to a large crowd near the White House, an angry Trump once again told supporters the election had been “stolen” and encouraged them to march on Congress. Babbitt was among the first of hundreds of people to breach the Capitol building’s security, as elected officials barricaded themselves in rooms, cowering from an angry mob. In footage filmed by one of the intruders, the 35-year-old can be seen trying to get through a broken window. “Go! Come on!” she shouts, encouraging those behind her to hoist her in. As her head appears through the window, a Capitol police officer fires his weapon, striking Babbitt in the shoulder. She would die from her injuries. – MAGA and QAnon – Babbitt was born in 1985 to a modest Southern California family in the San Diego suburbs, where politics was not particularly important, according to Roger Witthoeft, one of her four younger brothers. She enlisted in the Air Force at age 17, straight from school, and did tours of Afghanistan and Iraq. Subsequent spells in the Air Force Reserve and the Air National Guard led to a posting near Washington, as well as two more deployments to the Middle East. Babbitt left the military as a relatively low-ranking senior airman in 2016, several years before she would have become eligible for a pension or other benefits, and she returned to her hometown, not far from the Mexican border. There, she and her second husband took over a struggling pool maintenance company. In videos posted to social media, Babbitt raged against both the homeless and undocumented migrants, castigating Democratic elected officials for “refusing to acknowledge or even admit that we do need” a wall on the Mexican border — Trump’s signature campaign pledge. “The border is an absolute shit show,” she said. “There’s riots, there’s arrests, there’s rapes, there’s drugs… there are tons of issues. “I want my politicians to start coming down here and telling me that my reality is a lie. “You guys refuse to choose America over your stupid political party.” She attended Trump rallies wearing the red “Make America Great Again” hat that symbolized the movement, and presented herself on Twitter as a “libertarian.” It was here that she railed against the “pedophiles” and “satanists” she believed controlled the Democratic Party. To her brother, Babbitt was just “a normal Californian.” “The issues she was mad about were the things all of us are mad about,” he said. “That was one of her things — for the first time in her life, she could actually say what she wanted to say, and didn’t have to bottle it up” as she had had to do in the military. When the Covid-19 pandemic took hold of the United States, Babbitt embraced the anti-science rhetoric of the hard right. A sign posted on the door of her company read: “Mask free autonomous zone, better known as America,” where “we shake hands like men.” On January 5, she took to social media again, writing: “Nothing will stop us…they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon (Washington) DC in less than 24 hours…dark to light!” The phraseology is common among followers of QAnon, the loose amalgam of conspiracy theories that sees present-day politics as an existential fight between good and evil. For some fellow travelers, this invocation was enough to earn Babbitt immortality as a woman fighting for the soul of America, a tragic heroine who fell in battle. Babbitt’s mother told The Washington Post her daughter “made the ultimate sacrifice” to bring attention to what she said was “a stolen election.” But she acknowledged that not everyone agrees. “Half the country loves her and half the country hates her,” she told the paper. “It’s weird to have your child belong to the world.” View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Kim Cattrall has called for suicide prevention on her late brother Christopher’s 59th birthday. The ‘Sex and the City’ star took to Twitter on Sunday (02.01.22) to pay her respects to her younger sibling, who was just 55 when he took his own life in early 2018. Alongside an old photograph of the pair, she wrote on Instagram: “Today would have been my baby brother Chris’s 59th b’day. Happy Birthday, sweet ‘Topher’. We miss you today and everyday. RIPx #SuicidePrevention (sic)” The 65-year-old actress tragically lost her brother just days after she had asked her fans for help finding him when he went missing in Canada. It was later revealed Christopher died of suicide, and Kim admitted she will “never be the same” following his shock death. She said at the time: “I am different now and I will never be the same. No one can prepare you. He was suffering from depression but depression is a curious thing and it can be impossible to detect if someone does not want you to know. “And so I didn’t know. We [her family] didn’t know. And when you lose someone to suicide there is always the question, ‘If I could only have, if I did only, if I was only…’ and it haunts you. And you have to learn to live with those endless questions, the endless guilt, the endless frustration every day because you are in a new reality and there is nothing you can do to change it.” The British-Canadian star previously admitted she learned to “appreciate” her family and friends following the devastating loss. She said: “I think recently the thing that has taught me the most is loss. I’ve lost two family members and I think what it teaches me, I’m not there yet, but to really enjoy what you do, your family, your friends, to really appreciate … when I say goodbye to somebody I’m not going to see for a while. “The thought is now I might not see them again or for a couple of months but I want to keep those connections. I feel I value them much more, they take up more of how I want to spend my time because I realise how precious it is. View the full article

Published by Reuters By Luc Cohen NEW YORK (Reuters) – Late financier Jeffrey Epstein’s 2009 settlement agreement with Virginia Giuffre is expected to be made public on Monday, as part of Giuffre’s civil lawsuit accusing Britain’s Prince Andrew of sexual abuse. Giuffre’s lawsuit accuses https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/prince-andrew-is-sued-by-jeffrey-epstein-accuser-over-alleged-sexual-abuse-2021-08-09 Andrew of forcing her to have sex more than two decades ago when she was under 18 at the London home of former Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, and abusing her at two of Epstein’s homes. Giuffre, 38, is seeking unspecified damages in a civil lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court. Andrew, 61, has denied Giuffre’s assertions and has moved to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing Giuffre is seeking a “payday” from her accusations against Epstein and his associates. The prince has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing. He argues a confidential agreement Giuffre reached with Epstein, whom she has accused of trafficking her for sex when she was a teenager, shields him from liability. Andrew’s lawyer says the deal covers “royalty https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/epstein-settlement-with-giuffre-be-made-public-affects-prince-andrew-case-2021-12-29” and that Epstein intended for it to cover anyone Giuffre might sue. Giuffre’s civil case against Andrew is still in its early stages. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan has said a trial could begin between September and December of 2022 if no settlement is reached. A hearing on Andrew’s motion to dismiss the case is scheduled for Tuesday morning. Andrew gave up many royal duties in November 2019, stating that his association with Epstein had become a “disruption to my family’s work.” Giuffre’s suit is separate from the criminal trial against Maxwell that concluded last week. Maxwell, 60, was convicted of recruiting and grooming girls for Epstein to abuse between 1994 and 2004. Giuffre’s claims did not form the basis of any of the charges Maxwell faced and she did not testify for either side during the three-week criminal trial. Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 at the age of 66 while awaiting trial on sex abuse charges. (Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Diane Craft) View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Cassandra Peterson wants Dolly Parton to play her in a movie. The 70-year-old star – who is best known for playing ‘Elvira: Mistress of the dark’ in the 1988 comedy horror of the same name – claimed a movie of her life is currently in the works and she’d love to see the ‘9 to 5’ hitmaker take on the lead role. She said: “There’s a biopic, with somebody else playing me. I’m thinking like, Dolly Parton, right? They’ve got to have the right physical attributes.” Cassandra admitted she spends the whole year preparing for her favourite holiday, Halloween, which falls on October 31, and has lots of projects in the pipeline that will be out around that time. She told SFX magazine: “I’m not kidding, I’ve got projects in the works right now that will be coming out around Halloween next year and even the following year. So I prep for it all year round. I think people’s perception is that I go to sleep on November 1 and then I come back on October 1 and start working.” The actress is also keen to get a stage musical version of her most famous work established after many years of trying. She said: “And then the third thing I’m trying to do that I’ve wanted to do for years and years, and I have made little attempts here and there to do, is a Broadway musical of ‘Elvira: Mistress Of The Dark.’ It’ll be something like ‘Hairspray’ or ‘The Rocky Horror Show…” She explained that her hopes for a musical were caught up in rights issues, but being relentless means she doesn’t plan to give up. She added: “I’m pretty much like a pitbull with a bone.” Her recent appearance in 2020’s animation ‘Happy Halloween, Scooby-Doo!’ ignited her passion for wanting to be in animated movies – and she’d love to see an ‘Evira’ cartoon sequel. She said: “ I would love to do an animated project. I don’t know when I’m going to fit all that in… “I would freakin love to make that movie. If it takes much longer, it’s definitely going to have to be animated. Nobody is going to want to see a 90-year-old Elvira.” View the full article

Published by AFP US Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (C) is an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump and critic of how the US government is handling the pandemic Washington (AFP) – Twitter said Sunday it has permanently suspended the personal account of outspoken Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene for violating the platform’s Covid-19 misinformation policy. The lawmaker from Georgia is a loud and fervent supporter of Donald Trump and his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, and is also known for making outlandish anti-vaccine claims and other false statements about the coronavirus pandemic. Twitter said it was shutting down Greene’s personal account — @mtgreenee — for repeated violations of its Covid misinformation policy. She still has access to her official Twitter handle, which is @RepMTG. Greene used the personal one more frequently. “We permanently suspended the account you referenced (@mtgreenee) for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy,” Twitter said in a statement sent to AFP. “We’ve been clear that, per our strike system for this policy, we will permanently suspend accounts for repeated violations of the policy,” it added. Twitter did not specify exactly what Greene said to deserve this punishment. Greene hit back after her suspension, saying in a statement on Telegram that Twitter is “an enemy to America and can’t handle the truth. That’s fine, I’ll show America we don’t need them and it’s time to defeat our enemies. “ Twitter’s Covid misinformation police employees a strike system that metes out gradually escalating sanctions for violations. One strike results in nothing, for instance; three strikes results in a 12-hour account lock, and five strikes cause permanent suspension. Twitter had sanctioned Greene before the permanent suspension. Her account was suspended for one week in August after she tweeted that the Food and Drug Administration should not approve Covid vaccines because they were “failing” to slow the spread of the virus. On Saturday, she tweeted that deaths from vaccines used to be taken seriously in America but now “extremely high amount of covid vaccine deaths are ignored and government forced vaccine mandates are increased.” A year ago, Twitter banned Trump from the platform after the January 6 riot at the US Capitol by Trump supporters, who were fired up by his claims that he was robbed of victory over Joe Biden. twitter blocks marjorie taylor greene on Towleroad bell hooks Will Never Leave Us – ‘When I Need To Be Reminded Of How To Love And Fight, I Turn To Her Work’; Start With 3 Books More Britney Spears Birds Video With Hundreds Flying Out of Cages ‘Symbolic Of My Year’ More Fauci warns of danger of hospitalization surge due to large number of COVID cases More John Travolta Pal Tells OK ‘He’s Finally Ready For The Right Person’; Says Travolta Wants True Love; Weirdly Avoids Pronouns More ‘Incredible’: Trump supporters recall Capitol siege More Jan. 6 committee ‘looking into’ subpoenas for U.S. Republican lawmakers – chairman More U.S. Chief Justice says judges need ‘rigorous’ training on stock-trading rules More Ghislaine Maxwell Helped Kill Vanity Fair Exposé Of Her Sex Crimes, Newly Resurfaced Interview Reveals More Betty White, working actress into her 90s, dies just shy of her 100th birthday More Load More View the full article

Bell hooks’ books provide a window into her hugely influential theories. Karjean Levine/Getty Images Karsonya Wise Whitehead, Loyola University Maryland I was introduced to the work of bell hooks for the first time when I was 14 years old, sitting on my Nana’s porch, complaining about the mosquitoes and the heat. My Nana, who was probably frustrated by my endless complaints about being bored, stuck a copy of “Ain’t I A Woman” in my hand and told me just to “shut up and read.” I remember that summer because after I read that book, all we talked about was bell hooks and who she was and who I wanted to be. I said then that I wanted to be a writer, like bell hooks, and change the world with my words. I took her words with me when I went off to college, and by then, I had my own dog-eared copies of some of her books. I went to her work whenever I needed to be reminded of my strength. The world felt much safer when bell hooks and Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou were on the front line, carving out a path to freedom and modeling what a Black woman’s resistance to a system hellbent on trying to make them small looked like. bell hooks’ words went with me everywhere, even while they kept taking me back to myself. I, like countless others over the past 40 years, was inspired by bell hooks, who died on Dec. 15, 2021, at 69. As a leading Black intellectual, hooks pushed the feminist movement beyond the preserve of the white and middle-class, encouraging Black and working class perspectives on gender inequality. She taught us about white supremacist capitalist patriarchal values – giving both the words to define it and the methods to dismantle it. And unlike previous generations, she prompted Black women like myself to see ourselves, claim ourselves and love ourselves with an unapologetic fierceness. “No Black woman writer in this culture can write ‘too much,’” bell hooks once wrote, “Indeed, no woman writer can write ‘too much’… No woman has ever written enough.” I used to read her words to my sons when I was holding them in my arms, determined to practice “liberative parenting” and raise my Black sons as Black feminists. I met bell hooks in person several times in my capacity as an activist, an officer of the National Women’s Studies Association and as a scholar of African American studies. I have heard her lecture and have spoken with her, and every time, I was speechless. In her presence, I was once again the 14-year-old, sitting on the porch, diving into her words and finding myself on the other side. Her words, like my Nana’s hugs, always bought me back to myself, telling me, coaxing me, pushing me to become who I was meant to be in this world. I remember speaking her words to the wind, hoping that if I ever forgot who I was, the wind would remind me. Whenever I am hungry for truth, I turn to her work. When I need support or encouragement, I turn to her work. When I need to be reminded of how to love and fight, I turn to her work. So when I heard, read, realized and finally accepted that bell hooks – genius, scholar, cultural critic, truth speaker, one who had the strength to call out and challenge white supremacy and racism time and time again – had run on ahead to see how the end is going to be, all I could do was sit and breathe. I am not OK. None of us – feminists, scholars, activists, truth seekers, survivors – who have ever been touched by her work and her words are OK. Not today. Not at this moment, and not for a minute. It is not enough to say she saved me from cutting off my tongue, because unless you know her genius, you will think that this is just about violence and not about salvation. It is not enough to say that she saved me from burning it all down, because unless you know her brilliance, you will never understand how her words taught me how to come through the fire and be better and stronger on the other side. Because she wrote and published extensively, “bell hooks” the writer – a pen name that she borrowed from her maternal great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks – will never leave us, but Gloria Jean Watkins, did. The sun is not shining as bright as when she was still with us. My son called to mourn with me and wanted to know which books I would recommend to someone who did not know who bell hooks was and did not understand why we were in mourning. I told him that they should start with these three, and once they have recovered from the truth of her words, they should then read her other 30-plus books and scholarly articles. Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (1981) The cover work for the first edition of ‘Ain’t I A Woman’ Wikimedia commons In perhaps one of her most provocative works, hooks provides a true and clear analysis of what it means to live and be a Black woman in a racist, misogynist world. If you want to understand what it means to be Black and a woman, you start here and then keep going. “It is obvious that many women have appropriated feminism to serve their own ends, especially those white women who have been at the forefront of the movement; but rather than resigning myself to this appropriation I choose to re-appropriate the term ‘feminism’, to focus on the fact that to be ‘feminist’ in any authentic sense of the term is to want for all people, female and male, liberation from sexist role patterns, domination, and oppression.” – Ain’t I a Woman Feminist Theory: from margin to center (1984) Cover art for Feminist Theory: from margin to center. Wikimedia Commons When I was in college and struggling with understanding and defining what it meant to be a feminist, my professor Jane Bond Moore gave me her copy of “Feminist Theory” and told me to use it as a blueprint and a guide. This book is bell hooks at her best, wielding her pen as a weapon and using it to call out and critique white feminism and white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy. “Our emphasis must be on cultural transformation: destroying dualism, eradicating systems of domination. Our feminist revolution here can be aided by the example of liberation struggles led by oppressed peoples globally who resist formidable powers. The formation of an oppositional world view is necessary for feminist struggle.” – Feminist Theory Teaching to Transgress (1994) Cover art for Teaching to Transgress. Routledge As a former middle school teacher and current professor, my goal was to learn how to teach students how to transgress and why they should transgress against racial, sexual and class boundaries. “Teaching to Transgress” lights the way for anyone who wants to use the classroom as a starting place to help our students claim agency over their own learning. “We must continually claim theory as necessary practice within a holistic framework of liberatory activism.” – Teaching to Transgress [Understand what’s going on in Washington. Sign up for The Conversation’s Politics Weekly.] Karsonya Wise Whitehead, Executive Director, Karson Institute for Race, Peace, & Social Justice, Loyola University Maryland This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. bell hooks : Love and fight on Towleroad Britney Spears Birds Video With Hundreds Flying Out of Cages ‘Symbolic Of My Year’ More Fauci warns of danger of hospitalization surge due to large number of COVID cases More John Travolta Pal Tells OK ‘He’s Finally Ready For The Right Person’; Says Travolta Wants True Love; Weirdly Avoids Pronouns More ‘Incredible’: Trump supporters recall Capitol siege More Jan. 6 committee ‘looking into’ subpoenas for U.S. Republican lawmakers – chairman More U.S. Chief Justice says judges need ‘rigorous’ training on stock-trading rules More Ghislaine Maxwell Helped Kill Vanity Fair Exposé Of Her Sex Crimes, Newly Resurfaced Interview Reveals More Betty White, working actress into her 90s, dies just shy of her 100th birthday More Violence against women insults God, pope says in New Year’s message More Load More View the full article