State election officials studying whether 14th Amendment disqualifies 'insurrectionist' Trump from ballot
Election officials in key battleground states are studying the legal viability of efforts to disqualify Donald Trump from running for president, based on the 14th Amendment's ban on insurrectionists holding public office.
2023-08-31 23:28
Rugby star Ugo Monye: Boarding school shaped my career and my personality
The Rugby World Cup and new series of Strictly Come Dancing are both set to kick off soon – and one man who knows just how hard both of them are is Ugo Monye. “Strictly is gruelling,” says the former rugby pro-turned-pundit, who played with Harlequins and England before taking part in Strictly in 2021. “At times you’re training for 12 hours a day. So, you could go for a period of three or four days where all you do is wake up, go to the studio, go to sleep, wake up, go to the studio, go to bed.” He recalls recently telling his friend, comedian Eddie Kadi, all about this, the night before he was announced as a contestant for this year’s show. And because of the demanding schedule, taking care of yourself becomes a top priority. “You try and eat right, try and get as much sleep as possible. The biggest initial challenge everyone will find is their feet, because they wouldn’t have been used to dancing for 11 hours a day,” adds Monye, 40, who was partnered with Oti Mabuse on the show. Trading his rugby boots for ballroom shoes came with some challenges, but he still completed five weeks on the show (Monye and Mabuse finished in 11th place that year). “I remember when I did the quickstep, I had my smart watch on, which showed that I danced over 45km in five days,” he recalls. “I remember the first week or two, just the nervousness of rolling out of bed and putting my feet on the carpet because you didn’t know how they would feel.” Having played such a physically demanding sport for 13 years at pro level, Monye was not in bad shape. But Strictly was another “type of pressure”. “When I retired in 2015, I never thought that I’d be dancing, dressed in a low cut, electric pink, short sleeve shirt doing the samba. It’s something I’m actually really proud of,” he adds happily. Like lots of people, Monye, who has two daughters – Phoenix Lilly, six, and Ruby, three, with his ex-wife Lucy – recalls how his approach to self-care has evolved over the years. “Going back to the early 2000s, I was living the dream, right? I was 18 and I got a professional contract playing for my boyhood club, and within a year I travelled the world playing for England,” he says. “I was all, what mental health? I’m flying, right?” Things shifted with time, however, and he began to see the importance of having a proactive approach to maintaining his mental wellbeing. “I remember speaking to a friend, who is really interested in mental health, [about how] people often seek [mental health support] after something bad or traumatic has happened to a point where they actually need it. But it’s more like how you have to go and get an MOT on your car and service it,” he explains. “I think towards the end of my career, I became more aware of it. I have now definitely paid more attention to it and I absolutely love psychology, so I love understanding how the mind works.” Since his retirement, Monye – who has teamed up with Samsung ahead of the World Cup, which starts on September 8 – he has been busy being a dad, alongside jumping into a vibrant broadcast career. Having daughters made him reflect on his own upbringing too – going from being raised by a single mother on a London council estate, to a rural boarding school in Hampshire where he had his education funded (Monye secured a sports scholarship when he was 13). He attributes a lot of his success to his schooling. “I think the person I am now was born at age 13. Everything I was surrounded by was slightly different in that world. It was where I first was introduced to rugby, which then has quite clearly gone on to shape my career, the pathway that I have now, but also my personality. “I think I rely upon myself, I back myself. I had to depend on myself and try and get things done,” he reflects. “I think my personality traits, good and bad, were all developed at boarding school.” Having spent large chunks of his childhood away from family, how does he manage his own work-life balance as a parent now? “How do you manage your work-life balance? Well, you stand in the middle of the park taking a phone call,” he jokes (Monye is in the playground with his girls while we talk). “The time I have with them is absolute quality. For the World Cup, I’m going out for like three or four stints. I’d love them to be able to come out, but with school, it is a bit more difficult. “But I have said to Phoenix already that next year is the Olympics, and she loves gymnastics, so she’s going to be getting on the Eurostar with me. She is watching a lot of clips of Simone Biles at the moment on YouTube and she’s obsessed.” He wants to see his daughters inspired by brilliant women. “I love to watch sports with my daughters,” says Monye. “And we loved watching the Women’s World Cup. I had to get them to come and watch incredible women just do it.” Ugo Monye has teamed up with Samsung to help the nation see the new laws clearly and watch the match in supersize, thanks to the Samsung 98” Q80C TV (samsung.com/uk/big-screen-tv). Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live As Simon Cowell shares positive therapy experience, how can it help even if you aren’t in crisis? Project launched to bust myth that cancer is a ‘white person’s disease’ 10 slick ways to kit out your student digs
2023-08-31 23:25
Trump pleads not guilty and waives arraignment in Georgia election case
Former President Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty and waived arraignment in the case accusing him and others of illegally trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia
2023-08-31 23:24
Ukraine war: Zelensky makes long-range weapon claim a day after strike deep inside Russia
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday his country has developed a weapon that hit a target 700 kilometres (400 miles) away, in an apparent reference to the previous day’s strike on an airport in western Russia. Zelensky said on his Telegram channel the weapon was produced by Ukraine’s Ministry of Strategic Industries but gave no other details. On Wednesday, a four-hour wave of drones that Moscow blamed on Ukraine hit an airport near Russia’s border with Estonia and Latvia, damaging four Il-76 military transport planes, according to local reports. The airport is in Russia’s Pskov region, about 700 kilometres (400 miles) north of the Ukrainian border. In all, six Russian regions were targeted in the barrage amid the 18-month war. The Associated Press was unable to determine whether the drones were launched from Ukraine or inside Russia. Kyiv officials normally neither claim nor deny responsibility for attacks on Russian soil, though they sometimes refer obliquely to them. Zelensky’s remark was the clearest hint that Ukraine was behind the strike. The attack forced the closure of Pskov airport, though it reopened Thursday, according to Russian transport officials. Another drone intercepted overnight near Moscow resulted in flight delays at several airports around the Russian capital, officials said Thursday. No injuries were reported. Russian news agency Interfax reported, meanwhile, that security services killed two people and detained five members of a Ukrainian sabotage group in the Bryansk border region on Wednesday. The apparent Ukrainian drones reaching deep into Russia and cross-border sabotage missions are part of Kyiv’s efforts to heap domestic pressure on the Kremlin, militarily and politically. Meantime, a Ukrainian counteroffensive launched in June is chipping away at some parts of the front line, Kyiv officials claim. Ukraine is aiming to “erode Russian morale and increase pressure on its commanders,” the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank, said in an assessment. The strategy is “to bring Russian forces to a tipping point where combat power and morale may begin to break,” the IISS said in the analysis late Wednesday.
2023-08-31 23:23
Justice Clarence Thomas reports he took 3 trips on Republican donor's plane last year
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is acknowledging that he took three trips last year aboard a private plane owned by Republican megadonor Harlan Crow
2023-08-31 22:51
White House seeks short-term funding to avoid government shutdown -report
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The White House on Thursday asked Congress to pass a short-term government funding extension to avoid an Oct.
2023-08-31 22:50
Two Trump codefendants ask judge to sever their trials from former president
Two of Donald Trump’s codefendants in his Georgia election subversion case have asked the judge to sever their trials from the rest of the accused – including the former president. Lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro have both requested speedy trials in the case. On Wednesday, they each formally requested that their cases be separated from the wider indictment, something that – if granted – would prevent Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from holding one trial for all 19 defendants at once. DA Willis previously revealed her plans to hold one trial for all the accused this October. In requesting speedy trials, Georgia state law now requires Ms Powell and Mr Chesebro’s trials to begin before early November. Judge Scott McAfee has already ordered Mr Chesebro’s trial to start on 23 October, while Ms Powell’s request is pending. Mr Trump is against such a hasty timeline, employing his longtime legal tactic of attempting to slow things down and drag out the process until after the 2024 election. But now, if the cases are severed, this could lead to delays in a wider trial for the remaining defendants, including Mr Trump. The requests from Ms Powell and Mr Chesebro mark the first attempts from the defendants to try to break up the massive case into smaller individual trials. Their respective motions were filed on Wednesday as the defendants and the prosecution work to set the framework for the process. Mr Trump’s lawyers have also said that they want the former president’s case to be severed from the rest of the defendants, but they haven’t yet filed a motion to do so. Ms Powell and Mr Chesebro both deny all wrongdoing in the case. In her filing, lawyers for Ms Powell said that she “did not represent President Trump or the Trump campaign” in connection to the 2020 election and didn’t have an “engagement agreement” with Mr Trump or his campaign. “She appears on no pleadings for Trump or the Campaign,” the lawyers wrote. “She appeared in no courtrooms or hearings for Trump or the Campaign. She had no contact with most of her purported conspirators and rarely agreed with those she knew or spoke with.” Her insistence comes despite Mr Trump saying in the middle of November 2020, shortly after he lost the election, that he had “added” Ms Powell to his “great team” of attorneys working on legal challenges to the election results. When Ms Powell subsequently shared bizarre conspiracy theories that millions of votes had been flipped in an international plot to take down Mr Trump, his campaign removed her from the legal team and announced that she was “practising law on her own”. Now, her lawyers have also tried to distance herself from the other attorneys charged in the Georgia case, saying that she “went her own way” following the 2020 election and that “many of her purported coconspirators publicly shunned and disparaged Ms Powell beginning in November 2020”. The filing also argued that her legal career had shown her adherence to “integrity” and “the rule of law” while pushing the baseless claim amplified by many on the right that retired General Michael Flynn was the subject of “charges completely concocted against him by a politicized FBI”. Also on Wednesday, Mr Chesebro’s lawyers requested that the judge push Ms Willis to “disclose” the names of the 30 unindicted co-conspirators included in the indictment. Mr Chesebro was behind Mr Trump’s plan to put forward fake electors to win the electoral college and he argued that he needs the identities of the individuals in order to prepare his defence in the case. On Wednesday morning, Ms Willis filed a motion requesting that Judge McAfee advise the defendants in the case of the consequences of requesting a speedy trial, noting the demands on their procedural and evidentiary rights. “By filing their speedy trial demands in this case, the Defendants have personally, willfully and deliberately narrowed numerous options that would otherwise be available to them under Georgia law,” the filing states. Read More Trump threatens to ‘lock up’ rivals if he wins 2024 race as he’s accused of inflating wealth by $2bn – live Trump inflated his net worth by as much as $2.2bn, New York attorney general says Trump posts a staggering 31 videos ranting at political opponents in one day
2023-08-31 22:47
White House asks Congress to pass short-term funding to keep government operating, official tells AP
The White House says Congress should pass a short-term funding measure to ensure the government keeps operating after the current budget year ends Sept. 30
2023-08-31 22:22
Andrew Tate's ex-sponsor Daniel Knight claims women adore Top G, alleges Cobra stirs controversy for popularity: 'He loves women'
Andrew Tate's ex-sponsor Daniel Knight states that Top G used to make videos for online views in the past
2023-08-31 22:16
How tall is Dylan Mulvaney? Exploring height of TikTok’s trans influencer who rose to fame meteorically
The fallout from Dylan Mulvaney's Bud Light collaboration is still ongoing but the influencer has gone about her business nevertheless
2023-08-31 22:15
Iran accuses Israel of supplying potentially exploding parts for ballistic missile program
Iran has accused Israel of trying to sabotage its ballistic missile program through faulty foreign parts that could explode, damaging or destroying the weapons before they could be used
2023-08-31 22:15
Erling Haaland and KSI reveal bizarre bedtime habits during Logan Paul's 'Impaulsive' podcast: 'I sleep with it'
'I think sleep is the most important thing in the world,' Erling Haaland said
2023-08-31 21:58