Ryan Lochte has lost four sponsors on Monday after his Rio robbery story turned out to be false.
The US swimmer has been dropped by Speedo USA, Ralph Lauren, Syneron-Candela and Airweave following a drunken incident in Rio which saw Lochte claim he was held up at gunpoint along with four other American athletes.
British murder suspect David Taylor has confessed to killing a Balinese policeman on Kuta beach while his Australian girlfriend Sara Connor has denied any involvement.
Mr Taylor has reportedly told police he struck the officer, Wayan Sudarsa, with his own binoculars, a beer bottle and old mobile phone during a fight on the Bali beach.
British murder suspect David Taylor.
According to the ABC, after being interrogated for about 12 hours Mr Taylor’s court appointed lawyer, Haposan Sihombing, said his client told police he and Ms Connor were looking for her missing handbag on the beach when they saw a man in the area who turned out to be a police officer.
“There was a struggle between David and the victim on the beach. Also on the sand. When they were fighting David saw Sara behind the victim. Sara tried to break up the fight. David saw binoculars on the victim’s neck. He then used the binoculars to hit the victim’s head twice,” Mr Sihombing said, reports Fairfax media
“Our client regrets what he did on the incident of the 17th” the lawyer said.
Lawyers for Ms Connor, a 45-year-old mother of two from Byron Bay, emerged last night to say “Sara said that she (was) not involved at all with this murder”.
Both are still being detained for allegedly murdering the local policeman.
Just when we thought that we couldn’t love Prince Harry any more.
The young royal has used his skills in flying helicopters to help a herd of elephants during a conservation expedition in Africa.
According to People magazine, Harry was helping with “human assisted migration”, working as a spotter in Malawi to assist fellow conservationists to lead as many elephants as they could to a sanctuary.
The mission was part of the 500 Elephants program run by the not-for-profit group African Parks.
Harry hugs a sedated elephant the team were in the process of saving on a previous mission.
It’s a very important exercise in the fight against poachers devastating the population of wild animals in the area.
The 31-year-old Prince’s training flying Apache helicopters during his time with the army came in handy for this particular job.
Proud Prince Harry shows us around his helicopter in the clip below. Post continues!
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Prince Harry pictured here next to a rhino killed by poachers on a previous conservation trip.
People reports that Harry has no airs and graces while working with the conservation group.
He reportedly showers with a bucket and eats breakfast prepared in the field kitchen.
It’s clearly a cause close to Harry’s heart, as the royal also assisted a separate mission to battle rhino poaching in South Africa last year.
Meanwhile, the royal trio have sent a special message to Olympic athletes.
Meanwhile Prince Harry joined Prince William and Duchess Catherine in sending a special message of congratulations to the British Olympic athletes.
The royals made mention of their team’s record-breaking success during the games, with Team GB finishing in second place with 27 gold medals.
A statement released from Kensington palace from the trio read: “You should arrive home knowing that you have delighted millions of people across the Home Nations, many of whom have stayed up late, night after night, to share in your celebrations.”
Harry, Wills and Kate were very instrumental in the London Olympics.
The statement continued: “We all know that this success does not come easy and is the culmination of years of hard work, passionate commitment, sheer grit and determination. You are an inspiration to us all, young and old.
“To everyone associated with Team GB – well done! We hope that you have all enjoyed the experience as much as we have back home. William, Catherine, Harry.”
Watch the inspiring message they sent to the athletes before the Games in the video below!
The Oliver family have loved sharing glimpses into their new life with baby no. 5 on social media, so it’s no surprise that’s where Jools and Jamie Oliver decided to unveil their new little one’s name.
And it looks like the writing’s on the wall, literally, with Jools posting a photo of a gorgeous artwork in the baby’s nursery apparently revealing the new moniker.
The winning name? River Oliver!
“Dream big River,” the colourful sign said.
Fans were quick to post their messages of support to the gorgeous family on their choice.
Watch Jamie talk about preparing for baby number FIVE in the video below. Post continues…
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The gorgeous sign Jools used to make the announcement.
“Such a gorgeous name, and big congrats! How exciting, your print is beautiful xx,” one wrote.
“Lovely name and wonderful choice of announcement,” another gushed.
There are some fans who are speculating that the beloved full name is actually “Dream Big River”, but OK! UK confirmed the baby’s full name is River Rocket Oliver.
Jamie shared this precious snap of mum and baby earlier this week.
It’s not the first unusual name for the Oliver clan.
Jamie and Jools have a history of choosing unusual names for their kids, with four other children named Poppy Honey Rose, Daisy Boo Pamela, Buddy Bear Maurice and Petal Blossom Rainbow.
In an interview with Gurgle Magazine, Jools has previously said “They all have more than one name because I couldn’t decide.
“I’m not sure where Petal Rainbow came from – apparently it’s a My Little Pony! I wanted to call her Rainbow but Jamie told me to calm down!”
Petal has apparently been a doting big sister. “There for every nappy change!” Jools wrote beside this pic.
Jools continued: “With Buddy it was quite fun choosing a boy’s name, as I hadn’t done it before.
“And I hate people’s opinions on names. Whatever you call your baby is your decision.”
We adore the whimsical names all the Oliver kids have!
See the gorgeous moment Jamie and Jools took their little Buddy Bear home in the video below.
Carrie sporting her signature blonde tresses at the TV Week Logie Awards in May last year.
Carrie Bickmore has had blonde hair for what feels like forever, so it was a shock to viewers when she revealed a bold new look.
The former blonde bombshell debuted a dramatic new brunette look while hosting The Project on Monday evening.
When quizzed about her new dark locks by co-host Peter Helliar, she said: “I’ve had the same colour for 35 years, and I was bored and I thought, ‘Why not give it a whirl?’”
And while we LOVE Carrie’s new tresses, it seems not everyone is a fan of the major makeover.
See her big hair reveal in the video player below! Post continues…
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“If my face was an emoji, it would be this one,” Carrie captioned her hair reveal photo.
“My son’s not dealing with it well,” the host confessed. “He keeps looking at me and asking ‘When’s old Mummy coming back?’”
Her cheeky co-host Waleed Aly was quick with a quip, adding, “It’s a bit of a coincidence, because I was actually going to go blonde tonight!”
She looks so different!
Carrie confessed she loves the new look to the Herald Sun.
“As soon as I did it, I knew immediately I liked it,” she revealed.
Her transformation was in association with her brand ambassadorship of Garnier Nutrisse.
She continued: “I feel like a different person, I’m quite excited.
“I think for women it’s a big thing to change your hair colour, and for a drastic change it takes a bit of guts,” she said.
“Now that I’ve done it, I think everyone should give it a crack.”
Watch the beautiful moment Carrie teared up while talking about her efforts fundraising for brain cancer in the clip below.
As a host of The Project she appears on our TV screens almost every night providing us with smart and witty commentary on the day’s events. She’s also super generous, remember last week when she announced she’d raised more than $1 million for brain cancer? Yup, she’s a bloody good egg. And on top of all that she’s also a style icon – every year she turns out to the Logies looking a million bucks.
But tonight, in very exciting hair news, those who covet Carrie’s style might have had to do a double-take as the blonde media personality debuted brand new brunette locks.
Of her decision to trade in her signature light-coloured tresses Carrie said she was simply ready for a change.
“Do you know, I have the same colour hair for 35-years and I was bored and I thought, ‘Why not!'” Carrie explained. “I’m giving it a whirl.”
Carrie joked her son, Oliver was having some trouble adjusting.
“He keeps looking at me and going, ‘When’s old mummy coming back?'”
We love the Garnier Nutrisse ambassador’s new look but even if we didn’t, we don’t think Carrie would care.
Last year when the 35-year-old cut off her hair to a lob (long-bob) style she wrote a tongue and cheek post about not wanting honest feedback from her 300k strong Instagram followers.
“It’s been a week now of short hair/do care….so I don’t want your honest feedback,” wrote the mother-of-two.
Carrie has yet to post a picture of her new do on her Instagram but some fans have taken to commenting under her last post with mostly sweet notes of praise.
“A brunette bombshell!” wrote one.
“Your hair looks so stunning Carrie!!” wrote another.
Others took to Twitter to tell the Logie-winner they loved her new look.
They say a woman who changes her hair is about to change her life.. Lovin' the new 'do @BickmoreCarrie! 💁🏻
So Carrie, while you are not your hair, we’ve never seen you with anything else so please excuse our momentary excitement. Now we will get on with loving your super-smart-brainy-self like we normally do.
Australia has one of the highest per capita child abduction rates in the world. As many as 15 children are snatched by one or other of their parents each week, but as campaigner Amanda Sillars tells Beverley Hadgraft, few consider the emotional and psychological damage children may suffer as a result.
Amanda Sillars was 11 and watching early morning cartoons when there was a knock at the door. As she undid the security latch, it burst open, big hands grabbed her hard and Amanda was thrown into the back of a car. “Go! Go! Go!” a voice yelled.
It was Amanda’s father, ripping her away from her mother and a loving family and community in Perth to abduct her and vanish overseas.
Her mum, still asleep in bed, had barely rubbed the sleep from her eyes and begun to wonder what the commotion was about before her little girl was gone, speeding across the city to an unknown destination and future, still dressed in pyjamas.
It would take seven emotionally scarring years before mother and daughter were eventually reunited.
Amanda and her brother as children.
Today, Amanda, 43, is a mature woman with a life and children of her own. She lives on four hectares just outside Brisbane. Her gardens are filled with fruit trees, horses graze in the paddocks, a blackboard on the wall bears one word: Love.
That word represents so much in Amanda Sillars’ life – it’s the pillar that most of us found our lives upon, the rock that gives us comfort in times of trouble and confidence in despair.
Equally, for Amanda, that single word also represents all that happens when parental love, whatever its form, suddenly vanishes from a young life.
“It was on the house when I moved in and I’ve kept it there because it encapsulates why I’m here,” she says.
“We all need love and we all need love from the people who love us.
That love shapes who we are and who we become as human beings. That’s what happens between parents and children. But it also represents what goes missing in a child’s life when that love disappears for whatever reason.”
The consequences for children caught in the middle of Australia’s often bitter, but all too common, custody battles can be dire indeed.
The emotional impact of separation from one parent or the other – usually after months or even years of acrimonious dispute between parties – can be deep and long lasting, especially if one parent, in desperation or an act of revenge, abducts the child.
One only has to look as far as the Sally Faulkner story that went so disastrously wrong for the Nine Network’s 60 Minutes team in recent months to see how children often become the silent victims.
Yet those children are far from alone. Each week in Australia, two children are abducted and taken overseas by one of their parents. That statistic is frightening enough, but inside Australia’s borders, the rates of parental abduction are at epidemic proportions, with an additional 650 abductions per year. In total, 15 children are abducted each week.
“Abduction isn’t a custody issue,” says Amanda Sillars.
“It’s psychological child abuse.”
Amanda with one of her horses on her Queensland property. She runs a support group for abductees.
The beginning of a cycle…
Amanda’s home is idyllic, a far cry from the horrors of her childhood that saw her manipulated by her dad, cut off from her mum and left to battle depression, obsessive behaviours, eating disorders and an inability to form relationships. Other children like her, she says, have numbed their anguish with drink, drugs and most tragic of all, suicide.
Today, Amanda runs a support group providing information about the heartbreak that is parental abduction and its psychological sister, parental alienation.
Abduction, says Amanda, is the most extreme form of alienation, but it can also extend to children who come to believe a parent is too dangerous or inept to take care of them – children who may even live in the same town as their parent yet refuse to have anything to do with them.
Amanda’s own nightmare began about a year after her parents’ divorce. She was close to her mum, Nola, and the pair loved joking around, drawing or making things together. Nola had never said a bad word about her ex-husband, Ian, so Amanda was bewildered when he snatched her away.
“He took me straight to a shopping centre,” she recalls. “He bought me new clothes – a pink jumper and a cream sparkly shirt – so I went from feeling scared to feeling spoiled.”
They initially flew to Sydney and Amanda asked if her mum was okay and if she could see or speak to her.
“I could see that didn’t please Dad. He kept repeating very negative things about Mum and because children trust their parents, I believed him.”
Before long, she was telling others what her father had told her, “Mum didn’t look after me. She was a bad person.” Inside, though, she was hurting so badly she’d slice her little legs with the edge of a metal ruler until they bled.
Seven months later, whisked off to live in America, it became obvious it wasn’t parental love that had driven her dad to take Amanda away. He’d disappear for entire weekends leaving her alone with her brother, Mark (who’d been lured to his dad’s a year earlier).
If she asked if they could go home to see Mum for Christmas, she was told she had a new life and boyfriend now. If she asked to put up a photo of her mum, her dad crossly pointed out they had their own family photos.
If she said she missed other family members, he would become exasperated and make her feel ungrateful. “Look where we live!” he would say. “This is California!”
“When I heard nothing from Mum, it confirmed again what Dad told me. She wasn’t a good mum,” Amanda says. “I didn’t realise she was hiring investigators to find us.”
Her eyes well-up as she recounts the one all-too-short moment, aged 13, that she did hear Nola’s voice. She can even still recall the phone number she announced as she picked up the receiver: “Hello, 9-0-2 triple 9.”
“Hello? Is that Mandy?” her mum asked. “I couldn’t speak,” Amanda says. “I heard her crying and didn’t know how to deal with it, so I put the phone down.”
Amanda’s father, Ian, (left) refused to let her have a photo of her mum, Nola (right), in their home.
For the next five years, Amanda went into survival mode, studying and exercising obsessively. “I felt I’d lost myself. It was hard for me to even think for myself, Dad was so full-on. I felt I had no identity at all.”
She shakes her head. “I still don’t know if he thought he was the better parent or whether he simply wanted to destroy Mum, but parents who take children away [without reason] have serious mental health issues. They don’t think about the impact they’re having on those children at all.”
Amanda was 18 when her dad announced they were returning to Australia. Excited, she dialled her mum’s phone number and they arranged to meet. On television, such reunions are the stuff of tears and tender embraces.
Real life is less simple. “It felt very awkward,” Amanda says. She had been a little girl, barely reaching her mother’s shoulder the last time they’d been together.
Now her mum was the little one.
She seemed to have shrunk and her dry hair and flushed complexion suggested she had been drowning a lot of sorrows in alcohol.
“We went to a cafe. I didn’t know what to say, so I bombarded her with questions: I asked her why she never came to visit me, why she never contacted me. I told her I really needed her. She just sat there very quiet. I didn’t know what she’d been through. All she said was, ‘You’re just like your father.’”
After about 30 minutes, Nola explained she had to be at a court appointment. As she hugged her daughter goodbye, she snapped off a rose and handed it to her. “It was such a huge moment,” Amanda cries.
“All the way home, I thought how much I wanted our old bond and affection back.”
Amanda tried to ring her mum the next day to organise another meeting. There was no reply. Three weeks later, the number was disconnected. “I felt she didn’t want me. I had come back and all I did was bombard her with accusatory questions,” Amanda says.
Then about a year later, in September 1993, she got a phone call. Nola had committed suicide. It was the day after her 47th birthday. She hadn’t just lost her children, Amanda discovered, her husband had left her and was being chased by creditors, so she’d lost her reputation and business as well.
Amanda had one try at discussing what happened with her dad. “He just said, ‘Oh, well. I’d better be going now.’ He had no empathy at all.”
Three months later, he also died.
Amanda admits that she almost felt relieved.
Amanda with her own children. Ironically, history repeated and she was isolated from them.
A history repeated..
Ironically, Amanda has endured parental alienation with her own children – an inter-generational trait she says is surprisingly common.
“People often choose a partner similar to their role model and Dad was my role model,” she says.
She and her partner were together for six years and had a son and daughter.
After splitting up, they initially coparented until, Amanda, too, found herself isolated from her own children.
That has now been partially resolved and, after nearly four years with barely any contact, she has been reunited with her son Delsin, 16, but in the intervening years, shocked, bewildered and grief-stricken at being rejected by the two little people she loved most in the world, she consulted experts and psychologists and learned about parental alienation.
It happens, she explains, when one parent influences a child to turn against and reject the other without justification.
As a result, to help improve awareness and professional understanding, two years ago, Amanda set up the Eeny Meeny Miney Mo Foundation.
The group also aids research and promotes Family Court alternatives. Meanwhile, her Australian support group has more than 600 members.
For those in loving families, it can be hard to understand how a wedge can be driven between a child and their loving parent, so Amanda introduced us to Jai (not his real name), a teenage boy in her group. Jai was 11 when his parents split up. Initially, he went happily between the two, but says his dad was constantly asking, “Has Mum done anything to you?”
“I kept saying no, but he kept asking, so to stop the questions, I said Mum had smacked me,” says Jai. It was a lie, he admits, but he could see it was the answer his dad wanted.
After that, it was easy to come up with more lies to silence the constant interrogation. “None of it was true. I’d never been choked or smacked or abused by Mum. I knew I was lying and yet it didn’t feel like I was because there was always this pleased air every time I said something bad.”
Eventually, he stopped seeing his mum completely because it caused so much stress and made his dad so unhappy. When she asked him why, he said only, “You know. Don’t ask me that question.”
Jai learned to put away the good memories he’d shared with his mum and stop talking about her. However, he missed her terribly and felt bad at not seeing her. So, at 14, he tried to lose himself in obsessive sport, drink, drugs and even fighting. “I think I was lashing out at life,” he says.
It was a casual “What’s the go with your mum?” question from a school friend that changed everything.
As Jai confessed to his lies, his friend urged him to get back in touch.
Recounting that reunion now, a broad grin spreads across Jai’s face.
“It was so easy!” he exclaims.
“I think I’d been on edge for a very long time and suddenly there was this massive stress relief.”
Today, Jai lives with his mum, is receiving therapy to help him deal with what has happened and still sees his dad. Like most kids, he loves them both, but admits, “I would like an easier relationship with Dad. Those days when he just talks about normal things like helping me with a school project, they’re really good.”
Dr Mandy Matthewson is a clinical psychologist at the University of Tasmania working with the victims of parental alienation.
“It’s devastating,” she confirms. “Parents have lost their child, but the child is still alive and, in many instances, in an abusive situation.”
The traits those parents suffer are similar to those seen in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) victims.
As for the children, Dr Matthewson concludes that, basically, they’ve been so manipulated, “it’s as if they’ve had the life sucked out of them.”
Frustratingly, despite the fact it is such a big issue – American expert Dr Jennifer Harman has estimated it affects 13 per cent of the US population – parental alienation is difficult to deal with.
The legal system is perplexed by it, says Dr Matthewson. Health professionals have difficulty recognising it and if efforts are made to address it, with the family ordered to attend counselling, the court often doesn’t reinforce those orders.
In addition, the safety of the child is paramount, so allegations of abuse must be taken seriously and investigated.
Amanda and Delsin (inset) are now happily reunited.
Amanda shows me photographs of some of the people in her support group. Some count the length of separation from their children in years, some count every miserable day. “I call them the erased mums and dads,” she says, sadly.
“Children should never be put in a position where they have to choose only one parent – and I’m dedicating my life to having their situation properly understood.”
The Eeny Meeny Miney Mo Foundation provides resources and links to research about Parental Alienation. Visit emmm.org.au. To participate in further research, email [email protected].
A version of this article originally appeared in the August 2016 issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
What to eat for healthy poop may not be a “polite” topic for the dinner table. But, as we’ve discovered, it should be, especially when you consider your bowel motions are an indicator of your health.
What are the signs of a healthy bowel?
Being regular is not so much about frequency, as having bowel motions that are easy to pass. On the Bristol Stool Chart, you’re looking for a three or four. Usually, the bowel wants to empty 30 minutes after a meal, and for many people this happens after breakfast. Once you get the urge to go, you should also be able to hold on, and then pass a bowel motion within a minute of sitting down.
How to score your poop
The Bristol Stool Chart is an illustrated medical tool that classifies bowel motions into seven types. What your poo looks like (and how it scores) depends on how long it’s been in your intestine. It’s a result of what you eat, how much fluid you get, and how active you are.
Straining to go?
Constipation can occur for a number of reasons, including travel, changes in routine, not not enough fluid, and not enough exercise. And not enough fibre in the diet. One high-fibre way to prime your bowel for regularity is to eat a teaspoon of linseed with a little yoghurt each morning and evening with a couple of glasses of water.
When it comes to good bowel health, you want to include plenty of fibre-rich foods. You’re aiming to have between 25 grams and 30 grams of fibre each day.
Fruit and vegetables
Get your five plus two; that’s five to six serves of vegetables and two serves of fruit. Half a cup of cooked vegetables or one cup salad vegetables equals one serve.
When it comes to fibre, the rockstars include figs, kiwifruit, prunes and dates.
Go for natural muesli, bran and oats, grainy bread and crackers, brown rice and pasta, and grains like barley, quinoa, buckwheat and chia.
Beans
Legumes pack the biggest punch when it comes to fibre. Top your grainy toast with baked beans, add lentils to your bolognese, stir chickpeas through your soups, curries, casseroles and salads.
Nuts and seeds
Eating fibre-rich nuts and seeds will help you reach your daily fibre target. Choose muesli with extra nuts and seeds, top your oat or quinoa porridge with an LSA mix, and add raw or toasted hazelnuts, walnuts or almonds to salads.
We’ve all been guilty of going a little bit too far with fake tan at some stage of our lives. You know, that time you left your tan to develop for just a little bit too long or that other time you went two shades darker at the salon. It’s an easy mistake to make.
However, Irish Youtuber, Riyadh K just put on 100 layers of fake tan and we’re having trouble relating to this experience.
We don’t think Rihadh really thought this whole thing through. “I thought of it because all of the people were doing it!” he said. “I literally have a meeting in the morning.”
In case you missed it, Riyadh is just the latest in a string of bloggers to trial 100 layers of something-or-other. First there was 100 layers of foundation, then there was 100 layers of lipstick and who could forget 100 layers of wax. (Spoiler: ripping off 100 layers of wax is uncomfortable, to say the least.)
Basically, Rihadh put his body on the line to show us why 100 layers of fake tan is too many.
It started off quite orange and got much worse… check out the gallery to see more.
According to the internet star, “It burned like hell and took about an hour to wash off.”
And let’s hope that Rihadh managed to scrub all 100 layers off before that early morning business meeting.
Last week speculation arose that Princess Eugenie was set to wed her longtime beau.
Now, according to the Mail on Sunday, the wedding is set to happen within the next two years.
They claim, “that Jack has admitted to friends and family that he and Eugenie have made a pact to marry in two years. The agreement was made a fortnight ago, just after Eugenie’s sister Beatrice split up with her boyfriend Dave Clark.”
Jack and Eugenie have been dating for over six years.
The publication goes on to reveal that the club manager, 29, failed to tell his parents the exciting news of his nuptials, with them nearly “choking on their breakfast when they heard it not from him, but on the BBC.”
Buckingham Palace refused to comment on the royal wedding, but a spokesman for Eugenie’s mother, Sarah Ferguson, denied the report to HELLO!
“The story is not true”, the spokesman said to the publication.
The denial may have something to do with the Duchess’ eldest, Princess Beatrice, just splitting up with her partner-of-ten-years Dave Clark.
Apparently Eugenie is worried about being married before her big sister and now single Princess Beatrice.
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One thing is certain, Prince Andrew and Fergie’s youngest is moving to Kensington Palace… And many believe her beau will be heading with her.
According to MoS, Jack is shifting his priorities so that he can spend more time with his princess.
“Jack, who has been a barman and club manager since leaving university, has made another major life decision, promising Eugenie that he will now stop working nights, so the lovebirds can spend more time together,” a source told the British publication.
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