Heather Mack was destined for a life of privilege.

Her dad, James Mack, was a famous jazz composer and her mum, Sheila von Wiese-Mack, was a socialite and publisher, who was part of an elite social circle.

The family lived in an opulent home and Heather was set to inherit millions of dollars, thanks to a generous family trust fund.

But, in 2006, when Heather was just 10 years old, her dad died from a pulmonary embolism at age 76, while the family was on holiday in Greece.

Her entire world imploded and with her grief, she set off down a path of destruction – drinking, taking drugs and going to wild parties.

It strained her relationship with her mum, and they fought often, with police being called to their home after disturbances more than 80 times.

Match made in hell

One wild night out, when Heather Mack was 17, she met Tommy Schaefer, 20.

He was a college dropout and aspiring rap artist – and Heather was attracted to his bad-boy persona.

They soon started dating.

Sheila didn’t like Tommy, which drove an even bigger wedge between her and her teenage daughter.

When Heather fell pregnant aged 18, Sheila was desperate to show her she was going down the wrong path.

As a last-ditch attempt to salvage things, she booked them a luxury holiday to Bali.

They flew business class and checked in to the five-star St Regis Hotel.

It was supposed to be a few weeks in paradise where Heather could reconsider her life choices, but it turned out she had other plans…

Holiday horror

Using her mother’s credit card, Heather booked Tommy an $18,000 business class flight to Bali and a room in their hotel.

When Sheila found out he was there – and she was paying for it – she was furious, exploding at her daughter in the hotel lobby.

Next day, a taxi driver alerted security to a heavy suitcase that had been abandoned in his boot.

At first, he had thought that guests were coming back to collect it but then he’d noticed it was stained with blood.

Inside the case was the mutilated body of Sheila.

The 62-year-old had been bludgeoned repeatedly and had suffocated on her own blood.

CCTV footage from the hotel revealed Heather and her boyfriend had rolled the suitcase to the front, and asked a taxi driver to put it in the boot of his car while they returned to their room to collect something.

The couple hadn’t returned so the driver alerted hotel security who called police. Officers then made the gruesome discovery and launched a murder investigation.

Plot to kill

Footage from earlier that day showed Tommy Schaefer approaching Sheila’s room with something – which later turned out to be the metal handle of a decorative fruit bowl – hidden under his shirt.

Next day, the pair were found hiding out at a nearby budget hotel.

At first, they denied the murder, saying Sheila had been killed by a local gang.

But text messages quickly revealed they’d planned to murder Sheila.

Schaefer had texted his cousin Robert Bibbs telling him Heather Mack had offered $74,000 to help kill her mother.

Tommy and Robert then discussed possible ways to do it, including suffocation and drowning.

Money on their minds

The motive appeared to be Heather’s $2.4million future inheritance.

One message from Schaefer to Heather, sent as she boarded her flight to Bali read: I can’t wait to be rich… I seriously can’t wait. I’m so geeked. I’m like thinking of lavish lifestyles.

Texts showed the pair compared themselves to Bonnie and Clyde.

Tommy Schaefer eventually admitted beating Sheila to death with the fruit bowl handle but said he’d acted in self-defence.

He claimed they had argued after she had found out about Heather’s pregnancy and she’d threatened to kill the baby, repeatedly making racial slurs towards him.

Heather admitted her part in the crime, saying she’d helped Schaefer to stuff her mum’s body into a suitcase before they fled.

Many of their claims didn’t stand up in court though. Texts proved the murder was premeditated. And emails from Sheila to her friends showed she knew about the pregnancy before the holiday.

How long was Heather Mack sentenced to?

In April 2015, Heather Mack, 19, was convicted of being an accessory to murder and given a 10-year prison sentence.

Tommy Schaefer, 21, was convicted of premeditated murder and given 18 years.

The couple escaped the harshest Balinese punishment of death by firing squad, because the judge didn’t want their baby to be raised without parents.

During the trial, Heather gave birth to a baby girl, Stella, and had no choice but to raise her daughter in her cell.

“I don’t regret killing my mother”

Later, Robert Ryan Bibbs, 26, was sentenced to nine years in prison on one count of conspiracy to commit foreign murder of a US citizen.

In 2017, a video of Heather finally confessing to the crime was uploaded to YouTube. In it, she says, “I don’t regret killing my mother.”

She added that she did regret “trapping an innocent person into this”, referring to Schaefer.

In another twist, just days later, Heather Mack claimed the confession was false, and she’d been coerced into it a year earlier by Schaefer.

She told prison officials she didn’t know how the video ended up online. 

Where is Heather Mack now?

On October 29, 2021, Heather Mack, 26, was released after seven years, due to good behaviour.

She was deported and the moment she touched down in Chicago a few days later, she was arrested again and charged with conspiracy to kill in a foreign country and conspiracy to commit foreign murder of a US national.

Heather Mack initially pleaded not guilty, but later accepted a plea deal, admitting the charges. She faces up to 28 years in jail.

Her daughter is now in the custody of Heather’s cousin.

According to reports, Schaefer, who is still in prison, is a born-again Christian who has baptised other prisoners.

He could face the same charges when he is eventually released and returned to US soil.

“I used to sit at home watching crime shows on TV with my mum and remember asking myself, ‘How is it possible to kill someone? How do they do it?’ And now, here I am, in jail for murder in Bali. It seems surreal,” he says.

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Julia Faustyna’s (also reported as Julia Wandelt or Wendell) Instagram profile went viral, as she used the platform to share her belief that she is the young child that on the fateful night of May 3rd, 2007, went missing from a hotel room in Portugal.

The woman has said that she originally became suspicious after hearing “something” from her grandmother a few months ago and had since come to realise other pieces of ‘evidence’ that line up with the theory that she could be the Madeleine McCann.

In a recent development, California police have seized Faustyna’s phone however, the rationale behind the seizure has not been disclosed.

Speaking to the New York Post, Sgt. Mike Woodroof of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that Faustyna’s phone had been taken by police, but declined to provide any further detail.

This development comes less than three weeks after the ‘is Julia the missing Maddie?’ question was answered, following the release of the results from the DNA testing the Polish woman took to determine her genetic ancestry.

Dr Fia Johansson, a private investigator who has been assisting Wendell, said in a statement: “Julia’s test results are back. We finally know the reality. Although it is impossible to tell for sure without the parent’s DNA results on either side, the test results speak to the origins of Julia’s roots.

“The test results revealed that she is 100% Polish, with negligible influence from Lithuania and Russia.”

The DNA results did not show any connection to British or even German roots, which is the key part of the results that proves Julia Faustyna/Wendall is not the missing McCann.

Julia’s ‘evidence’ behind her belief that she was Madeleine included the same freckle on her leg and a speck in her eye in the same place as Madeleine.

One discrepancy in Julia Faustyna’s story was that she is 21-years-old – if Maddie is alive she would be 19-years-old today. However, Julia believed that the age she’s been told she is could be a lie in order to cover up the crime.

It’s the missing child case that many are familiar with – while the family were enjoying a relaxing holiday with friends in Portugal, Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry left their three young children asleep in their hotel room, whilst they went for dinner at their hotel’s tapas restaurant just 55 metres away.

The couple had agreed that one parent would check on their children every 30 minutes, but at 10pm, when Kate McCann went to check on Madeleine and her younger twins, Sean and Amelie, Maddie was no where to be found.

It is still unclear as to why California police seized Julia’s phone however, one thing is for sure – Julia is not the missing Madeleine we had all hoped her to be.

The post Madeleine McCann look-a-like Julia Faustyna’s phone has been seized by California police appeared first on Now To Love.

The show has drawn criticism from the families of some of Dahmer’s 17 victims, with critics also slamming the series for dramatizing the already gruesome murders.

But the killer’s two living family members, father Lionel and brother David, have remained silent about the shocking show, where actor Evan Peters portrays their violent relative.

David has changed his name in a bid to live apart from his brother’s brutal legacy, while Lionel has struggled to come to terms with his son’s crimes and Jeffrey’s mother, Joyce, died in 2000.

Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about Jeffrey Dahmer’s immediate family.

Who is Jeffrey Dahmer’s mother, Joyce Dahmer?

Jeffrey Dahmer was born May 21, 1960 to Joyce Annette Dahmer, a teletype machine instructor who would go on to have one other child, another son named David.

Joyce struggled with addiction and mental health issues during Jeffrey’s childhood, her husband Lionel claiming in his memoir that she was dependent on prescription drugs.

She attempted suicide once during Jeffrey’s childhood and in 1977 she and Jeffrey’s father Lionel divorced after he discovered an affair.

Her history of mental illness also made the news of Jeffrey’s crimes even harder to bear when they came to light in 1991, and she attempted suicide again.

WATCH: Jeffrey Dahmer speaks about his arrest. Story continues after video.

Joyce survived and later said she was grateful her attempt was unsuccessful, even going on to defend her son.

“I know this sounds strange but he did not mean to hurt anyone. I still love my son. I never stopped loving my son. Jeff was a victim of a compulsion. An obsession,” she told Hard Copy.

“He’s not a monster. He’s a human being and I think he deserves some help.”

She wanted Jeffrey’s brain to be donated for scientific studies after his death in prison in 1994, as she believed there may have been a biological cause for his crimes. She did not succeed.

Joyce died on November 27, 2000 after a long battle with breast cancer. She was 64 years old.

Who is Jeffrey Dahmer’s father, Lionel Dahmer?

Lionel Herbert Dahmer is a research chemist who was studying chemistry at Marquette University when his first son, Jeffrey, was born in 1960.

His studies often kept him away from the home and when he did spend time with his family, much of it was dedicated to wife Joyce and managing her mental illnesses.

In a 2020 documentary Lionel claimed he “had a very close relationship” with Jeffrey, however other sources suggest the boy felt neglected by his parents.

Lionel and Joyce divorced in 1977 and he later met and married Shari Dahmer, who became Jeffrey’s stepmother.

Though he noticed his son had an “odd” interest in animal bones as a child and a drinking problem in his teen years, it wasn’t until 1991 that Lionel learned of his crimes.

In the years after Jeffrey’s trial and conviction, Lionel would go on to write a memoir and regularly speak to the press about his son.

In 1994 he told Oprah Winfrey that he often wondered why his son became a killer and “considered all kinds of things”, including medication he claimed Joyce took while pregnant.

“My ex-wife had been taking about 26 tablets of different medications about one month after becoming pregnant,” he said in another interview with CBS Inside Edition.

WATCH: Jeffrey Dahmer speaks about his killings. Story continues after video.

That same year he published his book A Father’s Story, delving into his complicated relationship with his son and warring feelings about his crimes.

He visited his son in prison until his death in 1994, when Lionel said: “When I found out that Jeff was murdered, it was just devastating. It affected me very gravely.”

Lionel continued to speak to the press about his son after his death and gave a recent interview in 2020, though he hasn’t addressed the new Netflix series.

It’s understood that he’s still married to Shari and lives in Ohio.

Who is Jeffrey Dahmer’s brother, David Dahmer?

Jeffrey Dahmer had a younger brother named David, though little is known about his life today as he has worked hard to distance himself from his brother’s horrific legacy.

Born in 1966, David’s name was actually chosen by his older brother, though Jeffrey reportedly came to “resent” his young brother, who he felt got more from their parents.

David moved out with Joyce when their parents divorced while Jeffrey, who was 18, lived with his father and then grandmother and used alcohol to cope.

The split meant that David grew up away from his brother and his crimes and had even completed his university studies by the time Jeffrey was arrested in 1991.

WATCH: Dahmer family’s home video footage. Story continues after video.

Wanting to “cut all ties” with his brother, David did not attend Jeffrey’s trial and later changed his name from Dahmer, though his new name was not made public.

“He’s very happy,” stepmother Shari told Larry King of David in 2004, though not much else is known about his life today.

It’s believed that David is married, with a career and at least two children, per Women’s Health.

Who is Shari Dahmer?

Shari Dahmer was Lionel’s second wife and stepmother to Jeffrey and David. She had a limited relationship with Jeffrey but said she worried about his drinking.

“What I wanted to do, and what most people wanted to do, was mother him,” she said in a 2017 documentary of the first time she met him.

“He was just vulnerable. Even if I wasn’t his stepmother all his life, as a mother you sense those things.”

Shari said she never had any inkling that her stepson was a murderer but said in a 2004 TV interview that “no one allows us to forget about” their link to the serial killer.

Shari is believed to still be married to Lionel today and living with him in Ohio.

The post Who were Jeffrey Dahmer’s family? What Joyce, Lionel and David Dahmer knew about his horrific crimes appeared first on Now To Love.

Multiple outlets have reported the former model died of a suspected cardiac arrest after being discovered unresponsive at her New York home.

Police sources told the NY Post that Ms Trump was discovered at the bottom of a staircase in her Manhattan home just after 12pm local time. Police had been called to her home for a wellness check.

“A police spokesperson said she was found dead on the stairs and that foul play was not suspected,” Reuters reported.

“It appeared accidental and she may have fallen down the stairs. The Fire Department of New York said paramedics responded to a call to her apartment for a cardiac arrest.”

The official cause of death has yet to be announced and the statements from the Trump family and Donald Trump himself did not mention a cause of death.

The family is mourning the passing of a “brilliant, charming, passionate” woman who raised three children with the former US President.

During their 15-year marriage the couple welcomed three children, Donald Jr, Ivanka, and Eric. Ivana and Donald Snr. divorced in 1992.

Their only daughter together, Ivanka, paid homage to her late mother with an emotional tribute on Instagram on Friday morning.

WATCH: Lisa Wilkinson speaks out against Trump in the aftermath of the Capitol Hill riots. Article continues after video

Posting a series of childhood photos together, Ivanka penned: “Heartbroken by the passing of my mother. Mom was brilliant, charming, passionate and wickedly funny. She modeled strength, tenacity and determination in her every action.

“She lived life to the fullest — never forgoing an opportunity to laugh and dance. I will miss her forever and will keep her memory alive in our hearts always.”

Meanwhile Ivana’s former husband wrote of the 73-year-old on social media: “I am very saddened to inform all of those that loved her, of which there are many, that Ivana Trump has passed away at her home in New York City.

“She was a wonderful, beautiful, and amazing woman, who led a great and inspirational life. Her pride and joy were her three children, Donald Jr, Ivanka, and Eric. She was so proud of them, as we were all so proud of her. Rest In Peace, Ivana!”

This article originally appeared on our sister site, WHO.

The post Ivana Trump’s cause of death has been revealed hours after news broke of her passing, aged 73 appeared first on Now To Love.

The news broke on Friday, with the Trump family confirming her passing in a joint statement expressing their “deep sadness”.

“It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved mother, Ivana Trump,” it read.

“Our mother was an incredible woman – a force in business, a world-class athlete, a radiant beauty, and caring mother and friend. Ivana Trump was a survivor.”

Born in 1949 in the Czechoslovak city of Gottwaldov, Ivana’s hometown was taken over by Communists the year before she was born.

The statement continued: “She fled from communism and embraced this country.

“She taught her children about grit and toughness, compassion and determination. She will be dearly missed by her mother, her three children and ten grandchildren.”

Ivana immigrated to Canada in the 1970s and worked as a model before meeting and marrying Donald Trump in 1977.

The former US President also shared a tribute in her honour after news of her passing broke, posting to his social media platform, Truth Social.

“I am very saddened to inform all of those that loved her, of which there are many, that Ivana Trump has passed away at her home in New York City,” he wrote.

WATCH: Lisa Wilkinson speaks out against Trump in the aftermath of the Capitol Hill riots. Article continues after video

“She was a wonderful, beautiful, and amazing woman, who led a great and inspirational life.

“Her pride and joy were her three children, Donald Jr, Ivanka, and Eric. She was so proud of them, as we were all so proud of her. Rest In Peace, Ivana!”

The former couple shared three children together and were married for more than a decade, divorcing in 1992.

The split was foreshadowed in 1989 when the spouses were reportedly spotted fighting on a holiday in Colorado after Ivana encountered Donald’s mistress Marla Maples.

Their eventual divorce made headlines around the world and Ivana’s settlement included $14 million, a 45-room Connecticut mansion, and more according to a 1991 New York Times report.

However the exes appeared to be on good terms in recent years, with Ivana even serving as a friend and advisor to Donald during his presidency.

“We speak before and after the appearances and he asks me what I thought,” she told the New York Post in 2016, adding that she urged her ex husband to be more calm.

“But Donald cannot be calm. He’s very outspoken. He just says it as it is.”

Ivana’s only daughter Ivanka Trump shared a tribute to her mother on Instagram following the news of her death.

Posting a series of childhood photos together, Ivanka honoured the “brilliant, charming, passionate” woman who raised her.

“Heartbroken by the passing of my mother. Mom was brilliant, charming, passionate and wickedly funny. She modeled strength, tenacity and determination in her every action,” she penned.

“She lived life to the fullest — never forgoing an opportunity to laugh and dance. I will miss her forever and will keep her memory alive in our hearts always.”

This article originally appeared on our sister site, WHO.

The post Donald Trump’s first wife Ivana Trump has died aged 73 appeared first on Now To Love.

When Johnson (or BoJo, as he is nicknamed in the UK), was sworn in as PM in 2019, he sent tongues wagging around the world as he moved into 10 Downing Street with his new girlfriend Carrie Symonds, while technically still married to his second wife of 25 years.

The couple are now married and share two kids but why did his previous marriages end, and who else has he dated in the past?

We’ve got all the juicy details – here’s everything you need to know.

Meet the woman who described Boris as an excellent “ex-husband”

Years before he got into politics, Johnson was a journalist married to the glamorous art world doyenne, Allegra Mostyn-Owen.

The pair got together at Oxford University and were married in 1987, a day Allegra reportedly later described as “the end of their relationship, rather than the beginning”.

The beautiful daughter of art historian and millionaire William Mostyn-Owen has been described as a “Botticelli angel” and was even featured on the cover of Tatler magazine in the late 1980s.

It’s well reported that during the final days of Johnson and Allegra’s relationship, he had begun an affair with his childhood friend Marina Wheeler, who he would later go on to marry.

After six years of marriage in 1993, Allegra reportedly “generously agreed to divorce her husband”, the Daily Mail wrote at the time.

Relations between the former couple have always been perfectly pleasant and Allegra has not once had a bad word to say about the PM, even telling the London Evening Standard in 2012: “He’s a better ex than he was a husband”.

READ NEXT: Stunning celebrity second weddings proving love can be better the second time around

Johnson married his second wife, Marina Wheeler

Just an alleged 12 days after he divorced Allegra in 1993, Johnson married Marina Wheeler, a successful barrister whom he has known for decades.

And just five weeks later, the couple’s first child was born. They now have four children, Lara, Milo, Cassia and Theodore.

After 25 years of marriage, it was revealed in September 2018 that the couple had separated “several months ago” and intended to divorce.

“We decided it was in our best interests to separate,” the couple said in a joint statement.

“We have subsequently agreed to divorce and that process is under way. As friends we will continue to support our four children in the years ahead. We will not be commenting further.”

The couple’s daughter Lara, a fashion journalist, has reportedly called her own father “a selfish b–tard” and has insisted that her mother is “finished” with Johnson and will “never take him back”.

READ NEXT: The cringeworthy comment Britain’s new prime minister made to the Queen

There are whispers Boris’ third affair was the final straw

It has been widely reported that Johnson had three affairs while married to Marina.

The first was an alleged four-year relationship with journalist Petronella Wyatt, from 2000 until 2004, when Johnson was her editor at The Spectator.

Petronella, known as “Petsy” to her friends, reportedly fell pregnant with Johnson’s child and later had an abortion.

Petronella’s mother later revealed to the press that Johnson had promised he was going to leave his wife and marry her.

“In the beginning, the reason she went out with him was because he said he was going to marry her. Otherwise, Petronella never went out with a married man,” she told The Sunday Times.

What’s worse is that it’s also claimed Johnson had an affair with The Guardian journalist Anna Fazackerley at the same time he was dating Petronella.

The scandal emerged in 2006 when Rupert Murdoch’s controversial newspaper News of the World revealed the duo were seeing each other.

According to The Sun, “the pair were said to have had sex while he was a junior shadow education minister in 2005. On one occasion Boris got off a flight home from China to hook up with Ms Fazackerley in Paris.”

And then in 2009, it was reported that Boris had an affair with arts consultant Helen MacIntyre and fathered a secret lovechild, a daughter called Stephanie, with his mistress. There was a legal injunction sought to try to ban reporting of the child’s existence, but the judge ruled that the public had the right to know about Johnson’s “reckless” behaviour.

Marina is said to have thrown her husband out of the house several times over the years, but many believe fresh allegations of a new fling were the final straw for the respected barrister. It’s unclear exactly who the reported fling was with.

Johnson started dating Carrie while he was still married to his second wife

Johnson is now married to British PR whiz Carrie Symonds. She is reportedly highly respected in parliamentary circles and actually worked as a press officer for his London Mayer campaign, BackBoris2012.

She was even named the UK’s most powerful public relations professional by PR Week magazine. She currently works as a senior adviser to ocean conservation charity Oceana.

The pair were first spotted together on Valentine’s Day in 2018 – and in February 2020 announced their engagement and Carrie’s surprise pregnancy.

The couple welcomed their first son, Wilfred, in 2020 just weeks after Johsnon was discharged from hospital after receiving treatment for COVID-19.

A year later, the parents got married in a “small ceremony” at Westminster Cathedral.

Then, as 2021 came to a close, Boris and Carrie announced the birth of their baby girl, Romy.

“Both mother and daughter are doing very well,” an official statement read at the time.

Carrie’s romance with the PM got off to a scandalous start – it’s said that the pair started dating while Johnson was still married to his ex-wife Marina Wheeler.

Furthermore, in June 2019, the couple made headlines after police were called to their London apartment when neighbours said they heard the couple shouting at each other, including slamming and banging, with reports Carrie could be heard telling her boyfriend “Get off me” and “Get out of my flat”.

Neighbours said Carrie reprimanded Johnson after he reportedly spilled red wine on the couch and that they heard a loud smashing sound that sounded like plates.

“You just don’t care for anything because you’re spoilt. You have no care for money or anything,” she reportedly said.

Following the argument, a happy photo of the couple relaxing together in the countryside just happened to surface online.

Johnson’s team were accused of leaking the positive photo in an attempt to downplay the domestic dispute.

Aside from their early domestic rumblings, the couple usually keep a low profile and are rarely photographed together.

They were first non-married couple to live together at 10 Downing Street.

The post An entire timeline of soon-to-be former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s controversial romantic history appeared first on Now To Love.

As a journalist, I have reported from many conflict zones, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Libya. But what I find striking about the war in Ukraine is the sheer scale of the number of women and children fleeing the Russian invasion.

For weeks, Ukrainian cities in the north, east and south of the country have faced constant bombardment from Russian artillery. Many towns, villages and communities have been flattened. Lives have been lost. Homes destroyed. Livelihoods overturned. Most of those trying to flee the brutalities of this war have been making their way west to the relative safety of Lviv – just 70 kilometres from the Polish border.

It is the city’s main railway station which has best captured the human struggle of this conflict and the story of the Ukrainian people. It is a story of pain and sorrow. A place where hundreds of thousands of families are torn apart as mostly women and children frantically try to board the overcrowded trains heading to Poland and beyond, while sons, brothers, husbands and fathers stand on the platform bidding farewell. Men of fighting age aren’t allowed to leave the country. So, they say their goodbyes and head in opposite directions – uncertain of when, or if, they will ever be reunited with their families again.

The station is crowded with trains arriving every few hours from the worst-affected areas. Mothers occasionally are forced to pass pushchairs overhead to safety, their children unsure of exactly what is happening but nonetheless sharing the fear and anxiety of their parents. Despite the desperation, there is also a dignified silence amongst the people. Those who have made it this far are considered the lucky ones.

Like millions across Ukraine, they’ve spent days in underground bunkers in an effort to avoid the shelling. Their journeys are all quite similar – they wanted to stay and wait it out, but the fighting got so unbearable that they had no choice but to leave.

In the chaos and confusion, I meet Anastasia and her daughter, Alicia. They’ve arrived from Ukraine’s second largest city of Kharkiv in the east of the country.

Like so many women at this train station, Anastasia is perfectly groomed; her manicured fingernails painted crimson, she is rugged up in a bright silver puffer jacket, her mousy brown hair scraped up in a bun. She tells me they travelled 18 hours on an overcrowded train, sleeping in the aisle with her child in her lap. Anastasia immediately pulls out her mobile phone and begins to show me the destruction in Kharkiv.

Image after image, video after video of apartment blocks completely destroyed, furniture overturned, windows burst, doors off their hinges, glass and debris carpeting the floors. She tells me these are all homes of her friends and family. “I really wanted to stay, but as the situation got worse, I knew I had to leave for the sake of my child. We stayed in the corridor of my flat for a few days, but when we realised this was dangerous, we moved into my parents’ underground bunker. After seven days, I found a way out.

“I can never erase from my daughter’s mind the horrors she has witnessed. I am very worried about my parents who couldn’t leave, they are elderly and the journey out would have been too gruelling.”

Anastasia says she packed so quickly that she can’t remember exactly what she has brought with her. Seven-year-old Alicia grips tightly onto her cat and has a small box with her two pet rats in it. “This is our entire life. These animals and some clothes. I have a friend in Germany and I’m hoping we can make our way there. But first, I need a place here in Lviv,” says the single mother.

Anastasia and Alicia are ushered by some volunteers to a registration area where they will be given all the necessary help, including food, shelter and clothing.

WATCH: Russian leader puts nuclear forces on alert in Ukraine. Story continues after video.

When the conflict began, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, a former comedian turned wartime leader, called on the citizens of his country to unite. He told young and old to pick up arms. The Ukrainian people responded by waging a surprisingly successful resistance against their invaders. The country-wide mobilisation has seen the government share bomb-making instructions with grandmothers.

In a former art gallery in the centre of Lviv, I meet university students who show me how they are making camouflage nets for troops fighting on the frontlines. Alina, 20, tells me that just eight weeks ago she was at school studying, and now she is responsible for the operation at the centre. The petite, perky young woman has her golden locks pulled back in a high ponytail, with blue and yellow ribbons – the national colours of Ukraine – woven through her hair. She says there are now 180 volunteers working here.

“We make roughly 40 nets a day and the soldiers come and either pick them up or arrange the transportation to send them to the frontlines,” she says. “I’ve never done anything like this before, but like all the people here, I want to do whatever I can to help. I believe victory will be ours.”

Whether it is opening up their homes to those who are seeking shelter or making Molotov cocktails, the volunteer movement has stepped up against this Russian invasion. The thriving civil society in Lviv has focused on solidarity, activism and charity as part of its war effort. Despite the devastation that the conflict has caused in other parts of the country, so far this fierce sense of unity and the will to defend their homeland seems to have slowed down Russian forces.

While spirits are high in a place like Lviv, this is also a city on tenterhooks. The haunting soundtrack of air-raid sirens is a daily reminder that their nation is at war. Each siren horn is a warning that Russian jets may be overhead or nearby, forcing people to rush into the many underground bunkers for cover.

I have visited this city numerous times as a tourist in the past and enjoyed the many museums, galleries, cafes and restaurants. Little did I know that beneath these spaces across the city there are bunkers which were built in the Second World War. All residents seem aware of exactly where they are and kindly steer you in the right direction.

WATCH: Ukraine and Russia in peace talks as Putin denounces the West. Story continues after video.

Their faces are often full of dread as they make their way into the shelters – some from Lviv itself, others strangers to the city but all too familiar with the eerie wail of the sirens. And even though everyone goes through the motions once they start blaring, the fear is always the same – knowing that somewhere, something is being struck.

Ukrainians know the road ahead will be long and brutal. They are bracing themselves for whatever comes next. On numerous occasions the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has attacked Ukraine’s status as a separate nation, insisting it isn’ta real country. While the people I speak with tell me they don’t know what the future holds, there is one thing they are certain of – this unprovoked invasion has galvanised the strongest sense of nationhood Ukrainians have ever felt.

Yalda Hakim is chief presenter on Impact with Yalda Hakim on BBC World News.

You can read this story and many others in the May issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly – on sale now

The post EXCLUSIVE: This is the real human cost of the war in Ukraine as the nation is pummelled by Russian bombs appeared first on Now To Love.

While speaking out about the atrocities being committed in the eastern European nation can seem hopeless, some Australian celebrities are using their platforms for good, shining a light on the war and rounding up donations.

Carrie Bickmore, Rebecca Gibney, Brooke Blurton and Lara Worthington are just some of the many Aussies sharing their grief over the unfolding situation.

Keep scrolling to see how our homegrown stars are doing their bit to support Ukraine.

Carrie Bickmore

As an ambassador for UNICEF Australia, the ongoing crisis in Ukraine is particularly close to Carrie’s heart.

The Project host shared a photo of a Ukrainian child, saying kids in the European country need the same protection afforded to Aussie kids.

“This is Liza. She’s growing up in eastern Ukraine, but she deserves exactly the same things as a child here in Australia: clean water, a safe place to learn and a loving home undisturbed by violence. An escalation in conflict in Ukraine is putting all that at risk,” Carrie wrote.

“As a @unicefaustralia Ambassador, I’m standing with UNICEF teams around the world to call for immediate and lasting peace so that Liza and the 7.5 million children like her in Ukraine can have the childhoods they deserve.”

Carrie also shared a link in her Instagram bio and encouraged her followers to donate to displaced families in Ukraine.

Lara Worthington

The Aussie model didn’t just stop at spreading awareness for the conflict in Ukraine. The mother-of-three made the selfless decision to give a percentage of her wages to humanitarian efforts in the country.

“Inspired by my friend Mica, I’m going to be donating a portion of my earnings from the past two weeks in Australia towards efforts in the Ukraine. To my friends and colleagues feeling the same way – or any way, may this help you too. Love Lara,” she penned.

Rebecca Gibney

The Packed to the Rafters actress did her part by encouraging followers to donate to global charity World Vision.

“Families are in crisis as conflict escalates across Ukraine. World Vision is on the ground in Eastern Europe preparing to meet the needs of children and families fleeing the country,” Rebecca wrote.

Brooke Blurton

The former Bachelorette admitted that while she isn’t overly religious, the horror unfolding in Ukraine has made her want to pray for the nation.

“We’re all feeling a little hopeless but we can only do what we can do. I know myself, am only just putting my head down, bum up, but every time I’m looking up, I’m seeing the news, the shock and the fear in the world,” she penned.

Ukraine and Russia hold first talks as Putin denounces West

Rachael Finch

The former Miss Universe Australia has felt the impacts of the conflict more personally as her husband Michael ‘Misha’ Miziner is from Ukraine.

“Such a heavy heart over the past few days watching and listening to events unfold in Ukraine. Devastating for the families being torn apart, children suffering, people losing their homes, their lives, and experiencing a fear like no other. I can’t even imagine what it must be like,” she wrote.

Rachael said the news has been hard for Misha to watch as he has many friends and family living in Ukraine and Russia.

“Nothing but prayers and love. Let’s all hope for a peaceful outcome so soon.”

Debra Lawrance

The former Home and Away star shared a photo of the Sydney Opera House lit up in the Ukrainian flag’s colours, writing: “Is anyone else waiting for the news that [Russian president Vladimir] Putin has been taken ill and someone sensible taken his place?”

Tully Smyth

The Big Brother alum said she feels “so bloody helpless and useless” watching the Ukrainian horror unfold from her home in Melbourne.

“I’m educating myself on the conflict, I’m donating where I can and I’m trying to use my platform to encourage people to do the same,” she wrote on Instagram.

“But my heart is so heavy for so many people all over the world right now and I feel so f–king helpless.”

Martha Kalifatidis

Martha took to Instagram to encourage people to be sensitive to Ukrainians and Russians living in Australia.

The former MAFS star shared a photo of her cosmetic surgeon, writing: “Dr. Miller is half Ukrainian and half Russian. Please be patient with her and the team if you’re trying to book appointments as it’s a particularly stressful time.”

Martha also shared a recourses slide showing organisations that Aussies can donate to.

The post Carrie Bickmore, Lara Worthington and Rebecca Gibney lead the Aussie celebs supporting Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion appeared first on Now To Love.

The singer died on Thursday morning at age 103 while surrounded by her close family, a statement from her relatives read.

People across Britain were saddened to hear the news – including the royal family themselves – and their tributes prove just how cherished Vera Lynn truly was.

Announced overnight on Thursday, Vera’s family wrote they were “deeply saddened to announce the passing of one of Britain’s best-loved entertainers at the age of 103.”

“Dame Vera Lynn, who lived in Ditchling, East Sussex, passed away earlier today, 18 June 2020, surrounded by her close family.”

They confirmed a memorial service for the iconic singer will be announced at a later date.

Leading the royal family, and indeed Britain’s tributes was the Queen herself.

According to HELLO!, the Queen sent a message of condolence to Vera’s family herself.

It’s understood the Queen was hugely fond of Vera, and her music.

Having lived through World War II herself and with memories of what it was like as a child, Elizabeth no doubt appreciated the hope and respite the singer’s music brought during the difficult time.

In fact, even as recently as this year, the Queen has paid tribute to Lynn’s music in her own course of duty.

In April, the Queen gave a milestone wartime-esque address to the nation amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Directly referencing one of Lynn’s most iconic songs, We’ll Meet Again, the Queen said: “We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return: we will be with our friends again; we will be with our families again; we will meet again.”

Watch it in the player below:

Prince Charles and Duchess Camilla also paid tribute to the talented singer.

Sharing a series of images of the beautiful singer on Instagram, two of which included instances where she had met both Charles and Camilla, the pair simply wrote: “Remembering Dame Vera Lynn.”

Fans flocked to the comments section to also share their sadness after learning of her passing.

“R.I.P Vera Lynn. The Troops will line your stairway to heaven I’m sure,” one fan wrote.

Another said: “What a wonderful lady and a comfort to those young boys away from family. May she Rest In Peace.”

“You will join my late father in heaven … a WW2 veteran who passed at 99, he adored you,” penned another.

Vera was made a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour by the Queen in 2016, and her songs will live on – particularly the aforementioned We’ll Meet Again and another iconic tune, White Cliffs of Dover.

And there’s no doubt she will be sorely missed not only by her family, but by those who loved her music.

Vale, Vera.

The post The Queen shares a tribute to iconic wartime singer and friend of the royals Dame Vera Lynn, as she dies aged 103 appeared first on Now To Love.

The willowy Amal, at 1.74 metres tall, is as well known as a style icon and wife to actor George Clooney as for her work as a leading international human rights lawyer.

Maria, on the other hand, is a 56-year-old diminutive livewire.

An internationally renowned journalist, she is usually pictured gazing through her frameless glasses, clad in practical trouser suits and a dab of lipstick her only apparent make-up.

Yet these two women are now allied in a serious battle for media freedom in the Philippines – a battle both describe as being important to the future of democracy worldwide.

Meanwhile, Amal’s husband, George Clooney, has described Maria as “the bravest of them all … she is that version of us at our best, holding truth to power.”

In July last year it was announced that Amal would join a legal team that is trying to keep Maria out of jail and doing the kind of journalism that has annoyed authoritarian Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte.

Said Amal: “We will pursue all available legal remedies to vindicate her rights and defend press freedom and the rule of law in the Philippines.”

And in September, Amal raised Maria’s case at the United Nations General Assembly as an example of governments violating the right to a free press.

She said of Maria “[she] stands at five foot two, but stands taller than so many of us in her courage and personal sacrifice for the cause of telling the truth”.

Duterte, elected President in 2016, is best known internationally for his murderous “war on drugs”, in which an estimated 50,000 people have been shot down by police and vigilantes.

He has also made a habit of persecuting his critics. A number of his political rivals are presently in jail.

Maria has seriously annoyed him with continuous reporting on the drug killings and allegations of corruption surrounding his regime.

She has annoyed him so much that she has been arrested and bailed a number of times in the past 12 months on charges ranging from tax infringements to defamation.

She most recently appeared in court charged with “cyber libel” over stories alleging that a former chief justice had corrupt links to a Filipino businessman.

She was found guilty but released on bail pending an appeal.

This charge carries a penalty of between six months and six years imprisonment. She described the verdict as a “cautionary tale” and urged other journalists to have courage.

“If you don’t use your rights,” she said, “you will lose them.”

So who is Maria Ressa, and how has she attracted such international star power?

The Australian Women’s Weekly met her in the Manila newsroom of Rappler, the web and social media news outlet and voice of the free press which she founded in 2012.

She is now both CEO and executive editor.

It was hard to keep her sitting down for long enough to do an interview.

She is in perpetual motion – writing, talking on her mobile phone, calling out to her journalists.

On this day she had been up since before dawn to meet a deadline and she had appointments jam-packed until long after dark.

Meanwhile, she was constantly on social media, posting selfies and updates on what she and Rappler were doing.

The office has the feeling of a Silicon Valley start-up.

There are balloons in Rappler‘s trademark orange, lots of polished concrete and meeting rooms with notes scrawled onto the glass walls covering everything, from stories to be pursued to reporters’ names and coffee orders.

Maria, meanwhile, is always smiling.

She describes it as “my natural resting face”. This, despite the fact that she rarely sleeps the night through, faces constant threats on social media of murder and rape, is forced to have personal security and stands a real chance of being thrown into a Philippines jail for the rest of her life.

Maria and Rappler are currently facing seven cases in at least five courts in the Philippines, as well as another two sets of allegations currently pending decisions by the authorities, but also likely to head to the courts.

It is, says Maria, a “weaponising” of the law by Duterte’s administration.

Meanwhile, Facebook is being used against her. For many Filipinos, Facebook is synonymous with the internet.

There are more mobile phones than citizens, and 97 per cent of Filipinos connected to the internet have a Facebook account.

Since Duterte came to power in 2016, there has been an organised campaign of misinformation that continues today, and critics and rival politicians are denounced by a network of websites, amplified by Duterte-aligned mainstream media and the government communications staff.

These forces have been ranged against Maria and Rappler.

Faced with all these threats, in April last year Maria visited the Columbia Law School in New York for the launch of TrialWatch, a Clooney Foundation for Justice project that aims to monitor courts throughout the world for human rights issues.

At the time, she was just beginning to get frightened. After initially being optimistic that the charges against her would never proceed, they were now moving fast.

That was when George Clooney singled her out in the audience and described her as the bravest of them all.

Afterwards, she was ushered into a room to meet the Clooneys.

They were offered coffee by aides, but George spied a Nespresso machine – the brand for which he is an ambassador – and said “I can do this,” and made Amal and Maria “excellent” coffee.

Maria whipped out her phone and took a selfie of the three of them together.

Says Maria: “They are both such beautiful people – inside and out. And they very consciously use their celebrity for good causes.”

Amal began to talk to Maria about “how cases like mine proceed, and I just took out my notebook and took pages of notes because she was so amazing”. Both George and Amal “asked all the right questions”.

They clearly understood journalism.

“You wouldn’t normally expect somebody who’s a celebrity or somebody who’s an actor to know the nitty gritty of being in the trenches, but they did.”

Later, Maria found out that Amal’s mother, Baria Alamuddin, and George’s father, Nick Clooney, were both journalists.

Amal ran through the worst-case scenario for Maria’s cases.

“That was quite frightening. She told me I could go to jail for 63 years.”

Then she offered to be Maria’s lawyer. At the time, Amal was representing two Reuters journalists imprisoned in Myanmar.

They had just lost their appeal – but Amal told Maria she believed they would be released within two weeks.

“I didn’t quite believe her, but she said, ‘There’s things that happen publicly and there are things that happen behind the scenes.’ George said, ‘She’s been up till three in the morning for weeks working on their case’.”

Sure enough, two weeks later the Myanmar journalists were released under a presidential amnesty. As soon as she heard this news, Maria rang Amal back, and took her up on her offer of being her lawyer.

Maria’s Filipino lawyers will appear for her in court but Amal, together with international human rights lawyer Caoilfhionn Gallagher QC and lawyers from a top US firm, Covington & Burling LLP, will look at protections in international law.

Just before Amal announced her involvement, Duterte had claimed that Rappler was part of a “matrix” of organisations and individuals conspiring to overturn his government.

Human rights lawyers and others named as part of the supposed matrix were investigated for sedition – a non-bailable offence, meaning anyone charged would go straight to jail.

But the journalists were left alone.

It might be speculated that this is thanks to Amal’s involvement, and the international attention she had brought to her case.

Maria understandably won’t talk much about the legal strategies her team is adopting, but she does say, “I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders”.

Meanwhile, life in Manila continues to be tough.

Just before the Philippines mid-term elections last May, Facebook took down a network of accounts and pages for “inauthentic behaviour” and took the unusual step of directly linking them to Duterte’s staff.

“Too little, too late,” says Maria.

She believes social media is the “accelerant” in a cascade of misinformation that has been “like injecting fentanyl into your vein or injecting a drug that has not been approved into the body politic”.

The mainstream media has lost the battle for public attention and trust.

“I am well aware of Facebook’s power for good, but at the moment the ‘bad guys’ have been better at working out how to use social media than the good guys,” she

says.

“We have a patronage-based political system, a lot of poor and uneducated people, and this stuff infects easily.”

Despite its laid-back feel, the Rappler newsroom is forced to have tight security. A Duterte-supporting blogger invaded the office last year and livestreamed a call to his followers to come to the office and shoot the journalists.

Facebook took down the livestream – after a day.

Maria says she is relieved that she doesn’t have children because, if she did, she would be more frightened. She is unmarried and has sent her elderly parents out of the country for safety.

She declines to speak about the people who are important in her personal life. “I don’t want them targeted.”

Launching Rappler

Maria is a dual US and Filipino citizen, the daughter of two Filipinos. Her natural father died when she was an infant, and she was raised by her mother and stepfather, an Italian American.

In 1972, at the beginning of martial law under former president Ferdinand Marcos, they moved from the Philippines to New Jersey.

Maria was just nine years old. The move was formative for her, and began a crisis of identity that ended with a determined decision.

For better or worse, she is Filipino.

Maria recalls the shock of that childhood arrival in the US. “We landed in December. It was really cold. I was the shortest kid in public school. At one point I wanted blonde hair because there was no one like me. I never felt really American. I knew that I wanted to come back to the Philippines.”

In her senior year at Princeton – where she was a contemporary with Michelle Obama – she applied for a Fulbright scholarship to study political theatre in the Philippines.

But once back in Manila, she “fell into” journalism. It was 1986, in the wake of the people power revolution that deposed Marcos. A new constitution was being written. “It was a very exciting, optimistic time,” Maria says.

She worked for CNN in Manila and then across South-East Asia, before deciding to make the Philippines her permanent home and moving back to work for one of the biggest television networks, ABS-CBN, which has also recently been attacked by Duterte and threatened with non-renewal of its licence.

Meanwhile, she wrote two books about the rise of terrorism in South-East Asia. She founded Rappler in 2012 as a response to the collapse of the advertising-based business models that have traditionally supported quality journalism across the Western world.

It was an experiment in a new method of connecting with audiences. Maria was fuelled by optimism about the potential for social media to “cascade information” and allow good journalism to regain its power as a trusted source and brand.

The name “Rappler” is a combination of the words “rap” as in to talk, and ripple, as in to make waves. Rappler grew quickly, building networks across the country. By 2016, when Duterte was elected, it was scoring up to 40 million views a month.

Then the political attacks began, advertising fell away and Maria became painfully aware that the very social media networks that had made Rappler possible were now being used as a political weapon.

It started on Facebook, with false allegations that Rappler was American owned.

These were repeated by President Duterte in a state of the nation address in January 2018. The legal actions began – starting with the revocation of Rappler‘s licence to operate on the grounds that it was in breach of laws requiring media to be Filipino owned.

The basis for this claim was that Rappler had received money from the US-based philanthropic Omidyar Network. Rappler contested the revocation in the courts, and the case is now under review by the authorities.

Then came a total of four counts of tax violation, also to do with the Omidyar investment. Maria has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which are now before the courts.

Maria has US citizenship and could in theory simply move to the US to avoid the legal actions.

She refuses to do so because that would leave the 80-odd journalists who work for her exposed to the anger of the regime.

She believes that the Philippines, with its relatively weak political structures, is the “petri dish” for those wanting to use social media to manipulate and undermine democratic processes.

“What we’re going through in the Philippines you are all going to go through soon. The tactics that we’re living through are coming soon to a democracy near you. We are the canary in the coal mine,” she says.

How does she cope? Maria has to think before replying. “I work,” she says.

“That’s the best response. Despite whatever they throw at us, we keep doing what we do.” She also makes an effort to exercise, making regular trips to the gym.

But at another level, she is ready for the battle ahead.

“I feel like this is what I have to do right now. My values are very clear, and so are my standards and ethics.

“Of course there are a lot of things to fear but I’ve known from when I was a kid that people let their fears prevent them getting what they want in life. What you have to do is, whatever you’re most afraid of, you have to envision it in your head. You touch it, hold it and then reach out to your fear and you embrace it, because that robs it of its power over you.

“And today I have been to the gym – so I’m okay. I’m really okay.”

And there is that smile again.

Read this in the July issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly, on sale now.

The post EXCLUSIVE: It started with a coffee intro by George Clooney, now investigative journalist Maria Ressa is being represented by his wife Amal in a game-changing legal battle appeared first on Now To Love.

German authorities have named a new suspect in the case, 43-year-old Christian Brückner, also referred to as Christian B.

Brückner is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in 2005, and has previously been convicted of unrelated child sex abuse offences and drug trafficking charges.

And now he could be stuck in prison for life, if German prosecutors are successful with their investigation.

German investigators believe that Brückner killed Maddie shortly after abducting her from a holiday apartment in the Portuguese resort town of Praia da Luz in May 2007.

German police were first tipped off about Brückner after they investigated claims he was allegedly living in a borrowed camper van in Algarve, the regional of Portugal where Maddie and her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, were staying when she disappeared.

Police also cottoned on to Brückner after he allegedly told a friend about Maddie’s abduction over a drink on the 10th anniversary of her disappearance in 2017, and then shown the person a video of a rape.

READ NEXT: All the theories that Madeleine McCann’s parents were involved in her disappearance

Chilling comment to his ex-girlfriend

Brückner’s British ex-girlfriend claims the night before Madeleine was abducted, she had a chilling conversation with the suspect over dinner.

He told her: “I have a job to do in Praia da Luz tomorrow. It’s a horrible job but it’s something I have to do and it will change my life. You won’t be seeing me for a while.”

He disappeared at exactly the same time as Maddie, resurfacing three years later working in a bar in Lagos, not far from Praia da Luz.

It was in this bar that another British girlfriend said he looked exactly like the suspect in police photos being distributed.

The girlfriend jokingly asked: “You did it Christian, didn’t you?”

A friend of the girlfriend told The Sun: “He blanked the question and shrugged — then added, ‘Just don’t go there’.”

READ NEXT: Are Madeleine McCann’s parents still together?

Brückner denies all claims and is fighting the charges

Brückner’s lawyer Friedrich Fulscher says his client is remaining silent on all the allegations and is not cooperating with police, on his own advice.

He says this is because prosecutors have not produced enough evidence that Brückner is guilty yet – and certainly not enough to begin a trial.

“Mr B is remaining silent on the allegation at this time on the advice of his defence counsel. This is quite common in criminal proceedings,” Fulscher told The Times.

“It is the duty of the state to prove that a suspect committed a crime. No accused person has to prove his innocence to the investigating authorities.”

READ NEXT: What Madeleine McCann’s twin siblings are doing now

Authorities believe Madeleine is dead – and they’ve told her parents the heartbreaking news

German prosecutors have now formally written to Maddie’s parents, informing them of their official view that their daughter is dead.

However, they are unable to publicly state why they are so certain of this fact – and they are also prevented from informing the McCann’s of the reason why.

“We have concrete evidence that our suspect has killed Madeleine and this means she is dead,” a spokesman for Germany’s Braunschweig Public Prosecutor’s Office, Hans Christian Wolters, told journalists.

“The parents have been told the German police have evidence that she is dead but we have not told them the details.

“We can’t say why she is dead – it is more important that we are successful and we are able to get the culprit, as opposed to just putting our cards on the table and telling them why we think she might be.

“I sympathise with the parents, but if we reveal more details to them it might jeopardise the investigation,” he said.

He also added: “This is a murder case, not a missing person’s case.”

WATCH BELOW: Watch the trailer for the Netflix doco on Madeleine McCann’s disappearance. Story continues after video.

But despite this harrowing declaration, authorities are still appealing for more information about Maddie’s disappearance, because they do not have enough evidence to bring the case to trial.

“The hard evidence we don’t have, we don’t have the crucial evidence of Madeleine McCann’s body,” Wolters told Sky News.

“We expect that she is dead, but we don’t have enough evidence that we can get a warrant for our suspect in Germany for the murder of Madeleine McCann.

“At the moment, we also don’t have enough proof for a trial at court, but we have some evidence that the suspect has done the deed.

“That’s why we need more information from people, especially places he has lived, so we can target these places especially and search there for Madeleine.”

The post Everything we know about Madeleine McCann’s alleged killer Christian Brückner appeared first on Now To Love.

And now the British Prime Minister has again found himself in the headlines over another unprecedented event, with the 55-year-old conservative currently fighting for his life in the intensive care unit of a London hospital, after being diagnosed with the coronavirus.

His PR queen fiancée is pregnant with the couple’s first child – she is due to give birth during the British summer – and is also displaying symptoms of the virus, although she is yet to be tested.

“I’ve spent the past week in bed with the main symptoms of Coronavirus. I haven’t needed to be tested and, after seven days of rest, I feel stronger and I’m on the mend,” the 32-year-old shared on Twitter this week.

“Being pregnant with Covid-19 is obviously worrying. To other pregnant women, please do read and follow the most up to date guidance which I found to be v reassuring.”

The couple’s love story is one that has captivated the British people, and the press, not least because of the scandalous way in which their romance began.

Keep on scrolling to meet the formidable Ms Symonds and find out more about her extraordinary relationship with the British PM.

How did they meet?

It’s unclear exactly how the pair met, although the British PR whiz has previously worked in politics and is reportedly highly respected in parliamentary circles.

Ms Symonds actually worked as a press officer for Johnson’s London Mayor campaign, BackBoris2012, and was named the UK’s most powerful public relations professional by PR Week magazine.

She currently works as a senior adviser to ocean conservation charity Oceana and has an extensive background in charity work.

What we do know is that the pair have been dating for over two years – they were first spotted together on Valentine’s Day in 2018.

Carrie’s romance with the PM got off to a scandalous start – the pair started dating while Johnson was still married to his ex-wife Marina Wheeler.

After 25 years of marriage, in September 2018 (several months after Carrie and the PM were first linked), Ms Wheeler and Johnson explained they had separated “several months ago” and intended to divorce.

“We decided it was in our best interests to separate,” the couple said in a joint statement.

“We have subsequently agreed to divorce and that process is under way. As friends we will continue to support our four children in the years ahead. We will not be commenting further.”

Inside their Symonds and Johnson’s domestic dispute

In June 2019, the couple made headlines after police were called to their London apartment when neighbours said they heard the pair shouting at each other, including slamming and banging, with reports Ms Symonds could be heard telling her boyfriend “Get off me” and “Get out of my flat”.

Neighbours said she reprimanded Johnson after he reportedly spilled red wine on the couch and that they heard a loud smashing sound that sounded like plates.

“You just don’t care for anything because you’re spoilt. You have no care for money or anything,” she reportedly said.

Although the police were called, nothing came of the scuffle.

Local police said in a statement: “Police attended and spoke to all occupants of the address, who were all safe and well. There were no offences or concerns apparent to the officers and there was no cause for police action.”

Shortly after reports of the argument were made public, this happy photo below of the couple relaxing together in the countryside just happened to surface online.

Johnson’s team were accused of leaking the positive photo in an attempt to downplay the violent domestic dispute.

Aside from their early domestic rumblings, the couple usually keep a low profile and are rarely photographed together.

Now the couple are engaged, and expecting!

In February 2020, the pair announced their engagement and Carrie’s surprise pregnancy.

“The Prime Minister and Miss Symonds are very pleased to announce their engagement and that they are expecting a baby in the early summer,” the couple said in a statement at the time.

Ms Symonds also posted a message on her personal Instagram account, revealing she had kept news of her engagement secret until now.

“I wouldn’t normally post this kind of thing on here, but I wanted my friends to find out from me,” she wrote.

“Many of you already know but for my friends that still don’t, we got engaged at the end of last year … and we’ve got a baby hatching early summer. Feel incredibly blessed.”

READ NEXT: The entire timeline of Boris Johnson’s romantic history

How many children does Boris Johnson have?

It’s believed the PM has five or six children, but he is famously tight-lipped about the exact number.

While Mr Johnson has four children with his ex-wife Marina Wheeler, who are all in their 20s, as well as a love child from an affair he had, there are rumours he fathered one or more other children during previous flings.

WATCH BELOW: Boris Johnson’s most controversial moments. Story continues after video.

But when asked about the topic on British radio late last year, while campaigning in the UK election, he refused to comment on the matter.

“I love my children very much but they are not standing at this election. I’m not therefore going to comment on them,” he said.

“I am not going to put them onto the pitch in their election campaign when I think what people want to hear is what my plans are for the country, what this government is determined to do and how we are going to take this country forward.

“That is the way all parties should be judged.”

The post Who is Boris Johnson’s fiancée Carrie Symonds? Meet the woman who became the first live-in girlfriend at 10 Downing Street appeared first on Now To Love.

“He went back again and again, ignoring the toxic environment and personal risk, until he was satisfied there were no more obvious survivors remaining,” reveals White Island Tours workmate Rick Pollock.

Brave heroes

“This superhuman effort doesn’t surprise me in the least as I’ve seen this fine man in action on numerous occasions, always controlling a bad situation.”

He was just one of a number of incredibly brave tour operators and helicopter pilots, including Mark Law, who put their own safety aside to try to save as many people as possible when the volcano erupted at 2.11pm on December 9.

“I flew over and spotted where people were, found a place to land… a lot of people had clothes blown off, their burns were quite significant,” says Mark.

“Most of the folks were lying down or on their sides, some starfished, some sitting. No one was standing.”

WATCH: Footage captured at the scene shows tourists scrambling for safety after the volcano erupted. Story continues below…

There were 13 Australians rescued from White Island, which is situated in the North Island’s Bay of Plenty, including former Marist College North Shore student Jesse Langford, 19, who was feared dead until he was found in a New Zealand hospital last Wednesday.

His parents Anthony and Kristine and his sister Winona, 17, were still listed as missing when Jesse was found, severely injured but thankfully alive.

There were 47 people on the volcano when it erupted, including 24 Australians on a day trip from the Royal Caribbean cruise liner Ovation Of The Seas, aged between 17 and 72.

Six are confirmed dead and several more still are missing, feared entombed in the volcanic ash carpeting White Island, which is also known as Whakaari.

The total death toll could reach 14, including the missing Aussies. There were another 30 people injured, 25 of them critically.

With authorities committed to investigating how this disaster happened, particularly after the threat level of an eruption was raised two weeks ago, heroic stories continue to emerge.

Paul was the first back on the island after the eruption, leaping into action, rescuing and assisting injured people back onto waiting boats.

Stepping up

“Kingi put his life in danger,” revealed his mate Rick, who was devastated by the death of fellow tour guide, Hayden Marshall-Inman, who was the first confirmed victim to be named last week.

“As with most disasters there will be people who step up, heroes and heroines if you will.

“Sometimes the people will be the ones you expect, strong individuals in character and strength. Other times it’s the ones you least expect who take control of an arduous situation to the benefit of all involved. Yesterday was no exception with one man standing out, one Paul Kingi.”

The post Meet the volcano disaster heroes who charged back into the crater to save others appeared first on Now To Love.

With his movie star looks, progressive views and sweet family, it’s hard not to develop a slight crush on the Canadian prime minister.

And it appears even Melania Trump isn’t immune to his charms.

Over the weekend, world leaders assembled in France for the annual G7 summit including US president Donald Trump, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and our very own Scott Morrison.

But it was a moment captured during the group photo, that also featured the partners and spouses of the world leaders that attracted a lot of attention.

In the photo, US First Lady Melania Trump leans in to greet Trudeau with her eyes closed in a look that looks like a still straight out of a romantic movie. Meanwhile her husband, who is standing next to her, appears crestfallen.

Needless to say, the Internet took it in its stride.

The hashtags #MelaniaLovesTrudeau and #MelaniaLovesJustin have even gone viral on Twitter, after the photo circulated its way on social media, so we’re just waiting for the memes to start rolling in.

While many joked that the snapshot poked fun at the US president, others focused on bystanders Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron, the president and First Lady of France, respectively.

“Has anyone noticed the look on Bridgette Macron’s face as she notices the look Melania gives Trudeau #MelaniaLovesJustin,” one person tweeted.

Others remarked that Melania isn’t the only Trump woman to have set her sights on the handsome Canadian.

In 2017, a similar photo of Trump’s eldest daughter Ivanka Trump gazing at Justin Trudeau went viral during his visit to the White House for a roundtable discussion on women entrepreneurs and business leaders.

Speculation about the President and First Lady’s rocky marriage have been rife ever since his campaign kicked off in 2016. The hashtag #FreeMelania even became a trending topic at his presidential inauguration after her sad expression was captured on film.

But despite moments of tension though, Melania has supported her husband through his sea of scandals calling him “supportive” and “a gentleman.”

“People, they don’t really know me,” she told US journalist Anderson Cooper in October 2016. “People think and talk about me like, ‘Oh, poor Melania.’ Don’t feel sorry for me. I can handle everything.”

Speaking to MSNBC’s Morning Joe in February 2016, Melania also said, “We have a great relationship. We are own people. I’m my own person. He’s his own person. And I think that’s very important. I don’t want to change him. He doesn’t want to change me.”

WATCH: Melania Trump says her husband is a gentleman. Post continues after video…

This isn’t the first Trump themed hashtag to take off this year by any means.

At the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan in July this year, the hashtag #UnwantedIvanka took off after a clip emerged of the First Daughter attempting to join a conversation with France’s Macron, International Monetary Fund director Christine Lagarde,British Prime Minister Theresa May and the man of the hour, Justin Trudeau.

Twitter users proceeded to photoshop Ivanka into significant moments from history, ranging from the Yalta peace conference alongside Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin, to an iconic scene from Mean Girls.

The post Twitter is losing it over this trending picture of Melania Trump and Justin Trudeau appeared first on Now To Love.

But as she met the newly-instated 14th PM Boris Johnson, whose gaffes have made headlines for years, the Queen was reportedly forced to deal with a cringeworthy comment that we can’t believe was uttered by a world leader.

At Buckingham Palace, the new leader of Britain’s Conservative party was formally received by Her Majesty as she invited him to form a new government following Theresa May’s resignation.

These formal audiences with the Queen are usually kept relatively private, but as Mr Johnson returned to 10 Downing Street, he reportedly told his staff what went down, thereby breaking royal protocol.

NBC journalist Vincent McAviney tweeted, “Exclusive: “I don’t know why anyone would want the job” – what Johnson says HM the Queen told him during his audience! The PM revealed it during a tour in Number 10 before being told off by staff not to repeat those things so loudly.”

The Royal Family official Instagram also posted a photo of the meeting, but the comments certainly weren’t in favour of the new prime minister.

“I feel sorry for The Queen ,” one royalist commented.

“Right Honourable!!!!! That’s a laugh! #notmyprimeminister,” another penned.

One follower even referenced the hit biopic series The Crown which follows the life of Queen Elizabeth saying, “Wonder what will happen to the tv series the crown, if they get to this period. Suppose it will turn into a tragicomedy.”

With his blonde head of hair and conservative values, Boris Johnson has been dubbed on numerous occasions as Britain’s answer to US president Donald Trump, whom the Queen received in June along with First Lady Melania Trump.

However, when Her Majesty finds herself in a sticky situation, a report from The Telegraph emerged that she uses none other than her handbag to help get her out of it.

WATCH: The Queen gives Donald Trump an unusual present. Post continues after video…

It’s been revealed that the Queen uses her trusty accessory as a signalling device to her royal aides.

For instance, when she places her bag on the table in front of her, the Queen is reportedly signalling to staff that she she wants to leave in five minutes.

But be warned if she places the bag on the floor as this marks a polite way for her to request a lady-in-waiting to rescue her!

Judging by the bag’s convenient location on her arm, we assume that Boris’ visit to the Queen wasn’t annoying her too much.

When Scott Morrison and his wife visited the Monarch back in June, they greeted the Queen with formalities and an unexpected gift.

But before the D-Day commemorations for which he was in the UK to mark, the Australian prime minister presented Her Majesty with a copy of the official biography of champion racehorse Winx signed by author Andrew Rule as well as the horse’s owners placed in a nice tartan bag.

We wonder if Boris brought a gift too…

The post The cringeworthy comment Britain’s new prime minister made to the Queen appeared first on Now To Love.

But what do you get a 93-year-old monarch who literally has everything?

Mr Morrison, who was re-elected as PM last month, is currently in London ahead of the 75th anniversary of D-Day where he is due to meet UK Prime Minister Theresa May, US President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

But before the event on Wednesday, Mr Morrison and his wife Jenny gifted Her Majesty with a copy of the official biography of champion racehorse Winx signed by author Andrew Rule as well as the horse’s owners. And to top it all off, it was neatly placed in a tartan gift bag; how very British!

According to the ABC, Mr Morrison bowed several times before shaking hands with Queen Elizabeth and Mrs Morrison greeted the monarch with a traditional curtsy.

Mr Morrison isn’t the only world leader who wanted to recognise the Queen’s love of horses.

US President Donald Trump, who is currently on a whirlwind state visit to the UK with First Lady Melania Trump, reportedly wanted to gift the Queen with a racehorse and according to The Sun, instructed aides to scour Kentucky stud farms to find a thoroughbred.

But the plan was axed when Trump’s senior aides warned that the gesture would be seen as “too flashy” and “a bit over the top”. Plus the idea of transporting a horse across the Atlantic Ocean could have caused some issues too.

READ MORE: Duchess Catherine dazzles in her favourite tiara for glitzy state banquet with President Trump.

It’s no secret that the Queen loves horses and riding so the prime minister’s gift is rather appropriate.

Queen Elizabeth undertook her first riding lesson when she was just three-years-old and was given her first pony, a Shetland mare, by her grandfather King George V when she turned four.

And it’s clearly in the royal blood. Princess Anne was the first royal to participate in the Olympic Games and was a member of the British team, riding the Queen’s horse, Goodwill at the 1976 Montreal Olympics.

Then 36 years later in 2012, Anne’s daughter Zara Tindall followed in her mother and grandmother’s footsteps. As a member of the Great Britain Eventing Team, Zara represented the UK and won a silver medal at the London 2012 Olympics.

The post The unusual gift Prime Minister Scott Morrison gave the Queen appeared first on Now To Love.

The 38-year-old was the second woman in the world to give birth while in office and is and the youngest person to have held the coveted leadership role in 150 years.

Which is why an interview with the BBC overnight is seriously raising some eyebrows.

Ms Ardern, who is currently on tour in Europe and the United Kingdom; had already met with Theresa May and Duchess Meghan Markle before she sat down with the British press.

Originally there to discuss topics such as Brexit and a free trade deal between the UK after they leave the European union, she was noticeably surprised when the interviewer, Victoria Derbyshire, turned to her personal life at the end of the chat.

“Can you imagine asking your partner, Clarke Gayford, to marry you?” Derbyshire asked.

“Or will you wait for him to ask?”

Genuinely surprised by the question, the mother-of-one responded by laughing out loud.

“No I would not ask, no,” she said.

Persisting quite seriously, Victoria said: “You’re a feminist…” to which the PM said, “Absolutely!”

“Absolutely, I’m a feminist. But no, I want to put him through the pain and torture of having to agonise about that question himself.”

“No that’s letting him off the hook! Absolutely not.”

READ NEXT: Jacinda Ardern: Everything you need to know about the once-Mormon feminist

Even though Ms Ardern took the question on the chin, the Twittersphere have commented on the “horrible” and “distasteful” question.

“She’s the PM of New Zealand,” one user commented. “How is this a relevant question? No male leader would be asked this on a supposed news channel.”

“Can’t believe this question was asked. None of our business!!” another said.

While another commented on what “feminism” actually is: “And again…. people getting confused with what is feminism with what is perceived as a women/men stereotypical roles in society. Feminism is about equality, not ‘sameness’.”

New Zealand-based political commentator Bryce Edwards for The Guardian said the question was “actually very suprising”.

“And the prime minister’s reaction suggested that she was entirely surprised by it,” he said. “Certainly a lot of New Zealanders would see such probing of the prime minister about her relationship with her partner and her plans for marriage as being inappropriate.”

WATCH NEXT: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex meet NZ PM Jacinda Ardern

Before her next stop in Switzerland, Ms Ardern met with Duchess Meghan at Kensington Palace.

Markle welcomed her for the private meeting, where they discussed the Duke and Duchesses recent visit to New Zealand in October last year.

The two female leaders took the opportunity to reflect on the royal tour, with royal reporter Omid Scobie saying Meghan was “pleased to have the chance to thank the PM for the wonderful hospitality [she and Harry] received from the people of New Zealand last year.”

After their initial meeting in October, Scobie provided some rare insight into what it was like for the Kiwi PM, saying she came away from meeting Meghan and Harry feeling “impressed”.

“The Duke and Duchess are both very warm people… They really care about the work they do, they take their service seriously and I have a lot of respect for that,” she told Scobie.

During her first day in Switzerland, the PM spent the day at the World Economic forum, on a panel dealing with climate change alongside Sir David Attenborough.

She was also on the panel Safeguarding Our Planet, chaired by former US Vice President Al Gore.

Before that she had a day of meetings with the likes of Prince William, the Vice President of Peru Mercedes Araoz and the founder of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab.

The post NZ Prime Minister fends off “feminist” question in BBC interview appeared first on Now To Love.

But what is that and what if I don’t want one?

Find out everything you need to know below.

What is My Health Record?

My Health Record will be an online summary of all your health information, with the intention of giving both you and your healthcare providers access to necessary medical information such as allergies, medicines you are taking and pathology test results.

The big issue for many Australians is both privacy and data security. The government’s official website provides no guarantees about how those who have access to it will use your data, it does however assure that the online information is “personally controlled” and held in a ” secure system.” You can read more about that here.

The My Health Record website explains information on how to register for a My Health Record, set privacy and security controls, control and access your records and opt out.

For those who don’t opt out, a record will be automatically created for them.

How do I opt out of My Health Record?

You have just three months to opt out of a My Health Record, from July 16th to October 15th.

There are options to opt-out both online or over the phone.

Opt out for yourself

It’s a simple process, just click the ‘opt out now’ button on the government’s page here, and be prepared to verify your identity with the following documents:

• your Medicare Card, or Department of Veteran’s Affairs (DVA) card, and

one of the following forms of Australian identification:

• your driver licence; or

• your passport; or

• your ImmiCard

Opt out on behalf of children or dependents

You’ll be able to use the same process as above to opt out for your kids or dependents if they are listed on your medicare card and are under the age of 18.

Once you have completed the opt-out process, you won’t be able to cancel it.

If you miss the 15th October deadline to opt out, you’ll be able to cancel the account that is automatically created for you.

Still have questions? Contact the My Health Helpline on: 1800 723 471

The post How to opt-out of the Government’s My Health Record – everything you need to know appeared first on Now To Love.

A 92-year-old woman has been arrested for shooting her 72-year-old son who wanted to move her into an aged care home.

Anna Mae Blessing had been living with her son and his girlfriend for six months and she told authorities the pair had fought on Monday morning after her son saying she was difficult to live with.

Blessing reportedly said, “You took my life, so I’m taking yours” moments after she gunned him down at their Arizona home.

Blessing told Arizona police she’d hidden two handguns in the pockets of her robe before confronting her son in his bedroom, shooting him with multiple rounds, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office said in a written statement.

Blessing also admitted to police that she’d pointed the guns at her son’s 57-year-old girlfriend but the woman had been able to wrestle the weapon away from her.

The suspect refused to leave the suburban Phoenix home after the attack and was sitting in a reclining chair in her bedroom when she was taken into custody.

She told police she should be “put to sleep” for her actions and that she had planned to kill herself after shooting her son.

Blessing also revealed to police she had purchased one of the weapons but the other had been gifted to her deceased husband—neither had been fired since the 1970s.

The 92-year-old appeared at her initial court appearance in a wheelchair and her bail was set at $500,000 USD ($680,000).

The post Woman in her 90s kills her 72-year-old son for planning to put her in aged care appeared first on Now To Love.

One little problem; Zoe only received half the prize money of her male counterpart, which makes sense if you think about it.

It’s not like they surfed the same waves, battled the same conditions and fairly scored higher points than their talented competitors. Oh, they did? Right, well Billabong—the sponsors—only charge half as much for their female apparel and sporting goods, so Rio technically needs the extra money to fund his sport. Oh, those costs are also comparable? Got it.

Well, Zoey definitely hasn’t suffered enough for the sport. She only fought off a 10-foot Great White shark when she was 13-years old.

“I just saw this huge black eye looking straight at me and a huge bang as it took my board and began shaking it,” she said after the attack last year.

“It latched on with its jaws just missing my leg and it tipped me backwards and I fell in and I just saw the black shape of it in the water and panicked.”

This isn’t the first time the sport has gotten flack for its treatment of women. Its entrenched hyper-masculine image has manifested in instances of obvious sexism, like top female pro surfers being expected to wear bikinis instead of boardies to attract sponsors.

Former top 10 surfer Rebecca Woods complained she was dropped by her sponsor—the very same Billabong—in favour of surfers with model looks that would be eliminated in the first round.

“I didn’t particularly feel like I wanted to get naked to become more famous,” she told 7.30.

“It’s pretty challenging surfing in a bikini in the water, too. You lose them and your bum’s out and it’s frustrating and you just want some boardies on sometimes.

“But if that’s your pay packet and if you want to go to certain events, you’ll put a bikini on because your dream is to win a world title.”

Last year—and while this isn’t necessarily surfing’s cross to bear—surfing legend Laird Hamilton blamed shark attacks on women swimming while menstruating.

“The biggest, most common reason to be bitten is a woman with her period, which people don’t even think about that,” he said, in his best impersonation of Squirt from Finding Nemo.

“It’s kind of like running around with a lightning rod and then wondering why you got struck by lightning.”

While we can laugh at the sheer ignorance, the reality is these retrograde attitudes are reflected in the sport and it’s the female competitors who lose.

After social media tore strips from the competition organisers for the blatant pay discrepancy, at a nominally higher amount than the national average of 15 per cent, they ~~ apologised and rectified the mistake~~ doubled down and defended their decision.

“Men get double the money only because there are double the competitors,” WSL Australia/Oceania Regional Manager Will Hayden-Smith told Hack.

He said it came down to the “prize money per surfer” concept. If 10 male surfers are paying $10 a head, then there’s a prize pool of $100 to divvy up; If there are only five female surfers, the subsequent prize pool is $50 resulting in half the winnings.

But are less women competing because of the insidious hyper-masculine traits demonstrated time and time again by the sport?

Tasmanian surfer Brooke Mason told 7.30 she wouldn’t give in to substantial pressure to be sexy for sponsorship.

“Girls that kick arse should be getting paid rather than girls that show their arse,” she said.

But frankly, that isn’t an assertion a professional athlete should ever have to make.

Obviously surfing isn’t the only sport to face wild pay disparity. Even though the AFLW was watched more than any other Saturday night footy in 2016, female players were still making 125 times less than their male counterparts.

But not all sports are so quick to disregard their female athletes. Cricket Australia bolstered the women team’s salaries by 80 per cent, ensuring cricket could finally be a full-time profession, while tennis has managed to award equal prize money to its male and female competitors at Wimbledon for over a decade.

Isn’t it time for other sports to step up and do the same?

The post The gender wage gap is a myth? Explain that to the surfing champs in this picture appeared first on Now To Love.

Both Resham and her cousin, Jameel Muhktar, were badly scarred and Resham was forced into an induced coma due to the severity of her injuries.

Below: Rashem before the horrific attack.

It took 45 minutes for emergency services to reach the pair, who were forced to remove their clothing on the side of the motorway while attempting to flag people down pleading for water.

Photos of her traumatic injuries are shocking and extremely upsetting, but on the anniversary of the attack, Rasheem has posted a defiant photo of her recovery.

She lost hearing in one ear and suffered third degree burn to her head and body in the attack. One year on, she’s in Turkey celebrating her 22nd birthday with her friends, revelling in just how far she’s come since the attack.

Her attacker Tomlin was jailed for 16 years at Snaresbrook Crown Court back in April.

CCTV footage—aired in court—showed Tomlin chasing the vehicle as his victims tried to flee the attack before they crashed into a fence on the motorway.

Witnesses described seeing both victims “jumping around as if they were on fire” and their clothes “melting on to the ground”.

Over the last four years, acid attacks in London have seen a significant increase.

Police believe acid is rising in popularity amongst gangs due to how easy it is to obtain as well as how hard it is to link the weapon to a specific perpetrator.

Last year, it was used in 454 crimes in comparison to 261 the year before, according to Met Police figures obtained by the BBC.

In the wake of her attack, Resham started an online blog to document her recovery.

Following the attacks, the young woman shared that she was often too scare to leave the house.

“Today I was too petrified to walk to my local shop. Too scared to face the world. Too scared of the looks I might get. Too scared to tackle the question, ‘How are you’,” she wrote.

“Just too scared. That’s all I’ve been. Terrified and reluctant. My life on pause, frozen with fear.”

From being scared to walk outside to celebrating her anniversary of the attack in Turkey surrounded by friends—an incredible recovery from an incredible young woman.

The post Model attacked with acid on her 21st birthday shows her amazing recovery one year on appeared first on Now To Love.

Maria – a mother of four- was found to be in possession of 1.1 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine at Kuala Lumpur International Airport while travelling from Shanghai to Melbourne in 2014.

The drugs were discovered by Customs officers, who found them hidden in the lining of a bag which was allegedly given to Maria by an online boyfriend, who she only knew as “Captain Daniel Smith” from the US Special Forces.

Maria spent three years in prison, and in December 2017 she was found not guilty of drug trafficking, with a judge ruling she was just an innocent carrier duped by an online scam.

After the verdict was delivered, the 54-year-old Australian Grandmother was released on bail in Malaysia in January. She was unable to return home due to the prosecution filing an appeal.

Maria was found guilty of the drug charges this morning and will now face death by hanging, despite a recent change in Malaysian law which says convicted drug mules are not required to be sentenced to death.

Full consular assistance will continue being offered to Maria by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs.

Her lawyer has told the press that an appeal will be filed in the Federal Court.

The post An Australian grandmother has been sentenced to death in Malaysia after possible online romance scam appeared first on Now To Love.

We saw politicians actually listen to victims on television and heard survivors reject “thoughts and prayers” and instead demand policy change. While the Parkland victims mourned their friends, they also studied mass shootings in their country, researching statistics and facts to convince their government young lives are more important than donations from the NRA.

Massive crowds rallied to demand change louder than ever before—the electric atmosphere crackled with positivity. Maybe this really would be the last school shooting.

Then, just three months later, another teenage boy strolled into his school with a sawed-off shot gun and a pistol—this time in Texas—and murdered 10 people, allegedly taunting them as he went.

Donning a shirt emblazoned ‘Born to Kill’, suspected gunman Dimitrios Pagourtzis was reportedly heard cheering “woo hoo!” as he shot up classrooms.

Survivor Isabelle Van Ness told her mother he ridiculed students as they hid from him.

“The gunman then comes back into their room and they hear him saying … are you dead? Then more shots are fired,” Deedra Van Ness wrote on social media. “By this time, cell phones all over the classroom are ringing and he’s taunting the kids in the closet asking them … ‘Do you think it’s for you? Do you want to come answer it?’ Then he proceeds to fire more bullets into the closet and tries to get in.”

As officials and media scrambled to determine a motive for the football player’s killing spree, one of the victim’s parents sent the Los Angeles Times a message.

Murdered student, Shana Fisher, allegedly “had 4 months of problems from this boy,” her mother wrote. “He kept making advances on her and she repeatedly told him no.”

Sadie Rodriguez added Pagourtzis had grown more and more aggressive with his pursuit of Shana until she finally stood up to him and “embarrassed him” in class.

“A week later he opens fire on everyone he didn’t like,” she wrote. “Shana being the first one.” Ms Rodriguez didn’t say how she knew her daughter was the first victim.

Somehow, it was only Ms Rodriguez’ assertion her daughter had “embarrassed” Pagourtzis that made headlines, not the months of harassment. The wording seemed to, if not absolve the shooter, at least give him a motive—to rationalise his behaviour.

This trend of male shooters thinking women owe them attention, a relationship or even sex is disconcerting and begs the question, is male entitlement partly to blame?

The rise of incels

Last month, a Canadian man deliberately ploughed a van into a crowd of pedestrians and killed ten people, most of whom were women. The 25-year-old, Alek Minassian, is reportedly a part of a misogynistic movement known as “incels”, short for involuntary celibate.

Incels are by and large angry, sexually frustrated men who blame women for their lack of sex life. The group has since evolved, at its most extreme, to a male supremacist group who believe women should be treated purely as sexual objects with few rights.

Jordan Peterson, a YouTube philosopher, blames violent attacks perpetrated by these young, single men on the fact they’re not in a relationship and says the responsibility lies with society to make sure those men are married.

“He was angry at God because women were rejecting him,” Peterson told The New York Times when asked about the Toronto killer. “The cure for that is enforced monogamy. That’s actually why monogamy emerges.”

He thinks without enforced monogamy women will only flock to men of high-status, something ultimately unfulfilling for both genders.

Incels appear to have taken victim blaming and morphed it into a sick motivation for their attacks.

Previous shooters have also blamed their killing sprees on women

Before Elliot Rodger killed six people near the campus of University of California and took his own life in 2014, he recorded a disturbing video he titled “Retribution”.

In it, he claimed, “You girls have never been attracted to me. I don’t know why you girls aren’t attracted to me but I will punish you all for it. It’s an injustice, a crime because I don’t know what you don’t see in me.

“I’m the perfect guy and yet you throw yourselves at all these obnoxious men instead of me, the supreme gentleman. I will punish all of you for it.”

Once again, we saw a mass murderer shirk all responsibility for a heinous attack. In an instance where they were nothing but victims, women were accused of bringing it on themselves. To Rodger, rejecting his advances was worthy of a death sentence, and people are implying Pagourtzis was the same.

WATCH: Rodgers’ chilling final video blaming the fact he was still a virgin on his murder spree.

Soon after news broke of the Valentine’s Day massacre, it emerged shooter Nikolas Cruz had previously been in trouble for fighting with his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend. Despite officials saying there had been “no warning signs”, Cruz had reportedly been abusive with his former flame, a fellow classmate volunteering: “He stalked her and threatened her. He was like, ‘I’m going to kill you,’ and he would say awful things to her and harass her to the point I would walk her to the bus just to make sure she was OK.”

Leader of a white nationalist hate group, Jordan Jereb, claimed Cruz was a part of their organisation and, “There’s a very real sense of feminism being a cancer. That could’ve played into what he did.”

But Cruz’ demonstrated hostility towards women didn’t matter to some.

“Those talking about how we shouldn’t have ostracised him, you didn’t know this kid! Okay?! We did!” Parkland survivor Emma Gonzalez shot back at people blaming victims for the shooting.

But what about mental health?

Some American senators have a penchant for blaming solely mental illness in the wake of gun crime, but there’s a glaring problem with that assertion.

Every country has mental health problems—Australia’s own mental health care comes under fire regularly—yet only kids in America have an omnipresent fear of being murdered in their classroom.

“This isn’t just a mental health issue. He wouldn’t have harmed that many students with a knife!” Emma shouted to a crowd in the wake of Parkland’s shooting.

The glaring trait shared by mass shooters is that they’re male—in fact, female mass killers are “so rare that it just hasn’t been studied,” James Garbarino, a psychologist at Loyola University Chicago, told Harper’s Bazaar.

We need to start recognising misogyny for what it is—a destructive ideology that’s killing women. When young men are being radicalised online, by groups like the incels, and then using violence as a means to create terror amongst masses of people in the name of this ideology, it’s terrorism.

We’ll leave you with this haunting quote from a Santa Fe survivor that could so easily be applied to gender violence across the world.

Paige Curry was asked by a reporter if there was a part of her that thought: “This isn’t real, this is — this would not happen in my school?”

The young girl shook her head: “No, there wasn’t.”

“Why so?” the reporter asked.

“It’s been happening everywhere,” she said. “I felt—I’ve always kind of felt like eventually it was going to happen here, too.”

The post “She rejected him”: Why is there an implication women are somehow to blame for mass shootings? appeared first on Now To Love.

There are over 40 million copies printed in 70 languages all detailing the inner thoughts of the “inquisitive and in many respects precocious”, Jewish 13-year-old, who was kept in hiding/captivity with her family during Nazi occupation of Amsterdam.

The black and white photos of a young Anne Frank along with her diary helped her to become a worldwide symbol of the Holocaust.

It’s easy to forget this would-be-journalist was only 13-years-old, but two newly uncovered pages of the famous Anne Frank Diary remind us of this teenager’s more human side.

The hidden pages were covered up with brown gummed paper, but new technology has allowed researchers to reveal four “dirty” jokes and 33 lines about sex education and prostitution, adjacent to five, crossed out phrases according to the Anne Frank House.

The Anne Frank House alongside Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands presented the diary findings at a press conference this week.

“I sometimes imagine that someone might come to me and ask me to inform him about sexual matters,” Anne Frank wrote on the pages.

“How would I go about it?”

Anne then attempts to explain sex to an imaginary person, using the information she’s learnt from her father, a friend and books.

Her father is also the central source of inspiration for her dirty jokes, and Anne also refers to him visiting a “big house” of prostitution in Paris.

Anne published two version’s of her diary, these pages were found in the first copy, intended only for her self. She would later write a book based on her diary called “The Secret Annex”, which she’d hoped would be published after the war.

Anne died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp three months before her 16th birthday, in 1945.

The post Researchers have discovered two new pages in Anne Frank’s Diary, showing the teen’s cheeky sense of humour appeared first on Now To Love.

DeAngelo has been arrested on two counts of murder.

The Golden State Killer, also known as the East Area Rapist and the Original Night Stalker, is believed to have killed at least 12 people, raped 45 people as well as robbed more than 100 homes across California between 1976 and 1986. These crimes, against people as young as 13, were noted for the calculated brutality and extreme level of planning, says Pedestrian.

Sacramento authorities say DNA evidence helped lead them to DeAngelo.

At a news conference, the Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said: “The magnitude of this case demanded that it be solved. We found the needle in the haystack, and it was right here in Sacramento.”

Interestingly, before the arrest Australia was also on investigators’ radar. The Australian reported there was a theory that the killer had come to Victoria, based on similarities with the infamous Mr Cruel case. This link has been ruled out by Victoria Police.

Back in 2016, the FBI posted a $50,000 reward for help in finding what they called “the violent and elusive individual”.

In a 2016 statement, Special Agent Marcus Knutson who was heading up the FBI investigation, said: “We had people sleeping with shotguns, we had people purchasing dogs. People were concerned, and they had a right to be. This guy was terrorising the community. He did horrible things.”

Details of the crimes committed during this period are horrific. Armed with a gun, a masked attacker terrorised communities by breaking into homes while single women or couples were sleeping. Sometimes he would tie up the man and pile dishes on his back before raping the woman while threatening to kill them both if the dishes tumbled. There were also other bizarre stories like how the attacker would eat from his victims’ fridges and then take personal belonging’s, like class rings.

The post Ex-cop arrested as suspected notorious Golden State Killer appeared first on Now To Love.

This comes on the heels of her grandddaughter Jenna Bush Hager providing the public with an emotional update on Barbara’s condition, before her death. “We are grateful for her. She’s the best grandma anybody could have ever had — or have,” Jenna told Today co-anchors Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb on Monday, April 16.

“[My sister, Barbara Pierce Bush] and I talked to her last night. She’s in great spirits and she’s a fighter. She’s an enforcer. She reminded me not to believe everything you read. So we’re grateful for her, for everybody’s prayers and thoughts and just know the world is better because she’s in it,” Jenna said.

When Hoda asked the 36-year-old former First Daughter how her grandfather, George H.W. Bush, 93, and her parents were doing, Jenna replied, “She’s with my grandpa, the man she’s loved for over 73 years. And they are surrounded by family. But I think the fact that they’re together in this and he still says, ‘I love you, Barbie,’ every night is pretty remarkable.” Read on for more info about Barbara’s health battle before her death.

“It will not surprise those who know her that Barbara Bush has been a rock in the face of her failing health, worrying not for herself — thanks to her abiding faith — but for others. She is surrounded by a family she adores, and appreciates the many kind messages and especially the prayers she is receiving,” he said at the time.

For the past year, Barbara battled Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and congestive heart failure, and she was most recently hospitalized on Friday, March 30 for shortness of breath, according to CNN. She was on oxygen and she was being cared for at her home in Houston before her death.

What illness did Barbara Bush suffer from?

On Sunday, April 15, the Bushes revealed that Barbara had decided not to seek additional medical care after being in and out of the hospital in recent months for treatments for various illnesses. She spent her final days at home surrounded by her loved ones. “Following a recent series of hospitalizations, and after consulting her family and doctors, Mrs. Bush, age 92, decided not to seek additional medical treatment and will instead focus on comfort care,” Bush family spokesperson Jim McGrath announced in a statement posted on Twitter before her passing.

Did Barbara Bush smoke cigarettes?

Since Barbara suffered from COPD — a group of lung diseases that block airflow and make it difficult to breathe — many people wondered if the condition was caused by smoking. Though we don’t know for sure if smoking cigarettes directly caused the former FLOTUS’ ailing health, she did admit in her 1994 memoir that she began smoking at age 18. However, she later quit smoking on New Year’s Day 1968 and subsequently became an impassioned anti-smoking advocate. “She is full of admonitions about smoking, now that she has given it up,” a 1994 profile on Barbara explained.

Following the sad news of Barbara’s death, fans took to social media to share their well wishes to Barbara, and people from all types of political backgrounds praised her for the work that she did in her lifetime. While she served as FLOTUS during her husband’s presidency between 1989 and 1993, she championed the cause for literacy and she founded the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, which still works today to help imrove literacy in the United States for both parents and children. Our thoughts remain with the entire Bush family during this tough time.

The post BREAKING: Barbara Bush dead at 92 appeared first on Now To Love.

The decision to keep their child genderless is owed to the couple’s allegiance with a growing parenting movement known as gender creative parenting, and it’s parenting style that’s becoming increasingly popular around the world.

Steering clear of gender-specific pronouns, Kyl and Brent Myer refers to their ‘theyby’ Zoomer, as their, them, they or simply as Z.

The couple addressed their family’s newfound fame in an Instagram post on their account, Raising Zoomer.

“We want to introduce ourselves to you and welcome you into our world!” says Kyl to their new friends and followers.

“We actively work to provide Zoomer with an environment that celebrates their individuality. We expose them to all kinds of toys, clothes, colours and activities and we encourage their interests and self-expression.”

“Parenting this way has certainly reduced Zoomer’s experiences with gendered micro-aggressions and stereotypes.”

“Additionally, we actively strive to teach Zoomer about diversity, inclusion, equality, autonomy, and social justice. We are able to do this with an amazing network of supportive and loving family members, friends, and caretakers.”

“We are very proud and confident about our decision to raise Zoomer this way and we felt a responsibility to be a resource for people who are interested in learning more about gender creative parenting.”

“As you’ll see, there is virtually NO negativity on our account. We are proud of the community we have cultivated here and we intentionally created a space that is accessible, respectful, kind and fun. “

Zoomer’s parents believe “the gender revolution will happen in baby steps” and they’re open to answering any questions about their parenting journey on Kyl’s blog, RaisingZoomer.com..

They explain that Gender Creative Parenting surrenders a control which that parents never really had in the first place.

“It is a practice in freedom and rule-breaking and following kids’ lead when they show you who they are and trusting that they know what is best for them.”

Pop singer Pink has revealed that she is raising her children gender neutral, stating they are a “we are a very label-less household.”

“We are a very label-less household,” the 38-year-old singer told The Sunday People. “Last week Willow told me she is going to marry an African woman. I was like: ‘Great, can you teach me how to make African food?'”

“And she’s like: ‘Sure mama, and we are going to live with you while our house is getting ready.'”

See the Raising Zoomer blog for more information about Gender Creative Parenting.

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Meaghan Hess, the boy’s sister, has accused the airline of “disability discrimination” in a written statement about what unfolded when her brother Patrick attempted to fly from St. Louis to Seattle with their parents.

Hess, who was not travelling with her family, says airline staff forced the group off the flight, leaving them stranded in the airport when her brother vomited “a little”.

“After boarding the flight, Patrick threw up a little, and the airline workers kicked my family off the flight,” Hess, a third-year law student explained to NBC News.

The airline reportedly offered Patrick a plastic garbage bag to be sick in and rebooked the family on a new flight the next morning.

However, Hess has complained that no accommodation was organised and her family were left “stranded at the airport for nearly 11 hours”.

Hess argues that becasue Patrick has Down syndrome, he was treated differently.

“I can’t help but think [that] if a nondisabled child threw up, would the airline have kicked that family off the flight?” she said.

Alaska Airlines insists that staff was following regulations and even upgraded the family to first class for the new flight.

“The family was not able to depart on their original flight because the family’s child was visibly ill,” airline spokesperson Ann Johnson told NBC News.

“Out of an abundance of caution, the agent determined that the child was not fit to fly,” she continued.

“In the case of a medical-related situation, it is safer for guests to be treated on the ground, as our crew are not trained medical professionals.”

Hess has since taken to Twitter urging businesses to create policies to take better care of people with disabilities. She says she hopes by sharing her family’s story, other families won’t experience the same treatment in the future.

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Buzz, now 88, says that he saw an “L-shaped” spacecraft when he was on his way to the moon back in 1969.

“There was something out there that was close enough to be observed … sort of L-shaped,” he apparently said.

In a recent Reddit thread, the veteran astronaut told his fans he is “almost certain there is life out there.”

“There may be aliens in our Milky Way galaxy, and there are billions of other galaxies. The probability is almost certain that there is life somewhere in space.”

While many may feel like taking Aldrin’s comment with a grain of salt – here are five celebrities who definitely believe there is life in outer space.

Tom Cruise

In 2007, Tom Cruise, reportedly built an $11million luxury underground bunker at his Colorado property, so his then family could survive an alien invasion.

In the same year, Tom Cruise is reported to have said he was open to the idea of aliens.

“Are you really so arrogant as to believe we are alone in this universe? Millions of stars, and we’re supposed to be the only living creatures? No, there are many things out there. We just don’t know.”

Zayn Malik

Zayn Malik told Glamour Magazine an alien told him to quit One Direction

No we aren’t kidding. The solo pop star says the extra-terrestrial came to him in a dream.

Glamour Magazine unearthed the out-there reason for going solo during a recent interview.

They asked him when the first time was that he realised he wanted to split from the band and do his own thing, musically speaking.

“An alien spoke to me in a dream,” the 23-year-old musician told the publication.

Unfortunately for us all, he neglected to expand on it any further than that.

Olivia Newton-John

Olivia Newton-John claims she saw a UFO when she was a teenager. The 60-year-old ‘Xanadu’ actress has described how she saw a silver object flying through the sky when she was 15. She recalls, “I have seen one when I was very young. It was unidentified and it was flying.”

The actress elaborated that at the time she saw the UFO, most people did not believe in extraterrestrial life. “In England, most people now think UFOs are possible.Twenty years ago, how many people would have thought that?”

Megan Fox

The Transformers actress once told Ellen DeGeneres, “Everyone thinks I’m crazy. It’s all about the theory that these megalithic structures were possibly built by—not necessarily like little green aliens, but maybe future humans that they call ancient astronauts—that did some sort of time travel. Something extraterrestrial was involved.”

Halle Berry

Halle Berry is a more recent public believer. In a 2014 Interview with David Letterman, the Catwoman actress said she thinks they are “out there.”

She said, “I don’t believe we are the only species in existence. My ego doesn’t tell me that we’re the only ones who survived … it might take us 20 years to get to those other life forms, but I think they are out there.”

The post Buzz Aldrin claims he saw a UFO while in Space and these celebrities would all believe him appeared first on Now To Love.

Police claim Phoenix, Arizona, mum Sharron Dobbins shocked her 17-year-old son after several attempts to wake him up failed and arrested her on suspicion of child abuse after her son alerted authorities.

She has claimed that she only touched her son’s leg with the taser and did not actually shock him. Police documents say the teen had two small bumps on his leg from being zapped.

“I said, ‘Get up! It’s Jesus’ Day!'” she said in an interview with US media.

“He was like, ‘Mom, I’m calling the police.’ I said, ‘You can call the police, UPS, DPS, whoever you want to call’

“Police were on the phone and I told the dispatcher, I told her, ‘You need to be with Jesus right now.'”

Dobbins was taken to jail where she spent 12 hours before being released to face court later this month.

“I don’t think I did anything wrong because you’re supposed to put God first and that’s all I was trying to do is tell my kids to put God first,” Dobbins told media.

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