EXCLUSIVE I transitioned from male to female when I was 12... here's why I SUPPORT Trump's ban on childhood sex changes
Cole, 20, began to transition at age 12 with drugs and then breast-removal surgery, which she later regretted and has tried to reverse. She says President Donald Trump 's directive should stand, as it would stop other minors suffering like her.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
19 minutes ago
- The Independent
Mark Hamill reveals he planned to leave the US when Donald Trump was re-elected
Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Star Wars actor Mark Hamill has revealed he planned to leave the United States when Donald Trump was re-elected as president in 2024. The 73-year-old, known for his role as Luke Skywalker in the iconic sci-fi franchise, gave his wife Marilou Tork – whom he married in 1978 – the choice between relocating to 'London or Ireland'. Hamill's wife, who worked as a dental hygienist and met Hamill while cleaning his teeth, ingeniously convinced her husband not to move countries by suggesting Trump was pushing them out of the US. 'She's very clever. She didn't respond right away but a week later she said, 'I'm surprised you would allow him to force you out of your own country,'' Hamill, a lifelong Democrat, told The Times. ''That son of a b****', I thought. I'm not leaving.' When asked about the political landscape in the United States, Hamill expressed exasperation over 'the bullying, the incompetence, the people in place' in the Trump administration. The actor added that the only way he could 'deal' with the his country's politics without becoming suicidal was to look at the situation 'like a thick, sprawling political novel' instead of reality. open image in gallery Actor Mark Hamill has revealed he planned to leave the United States after Donald Trump was re-elected in 2024 ( Getty ) Despite his horror, Hamill added that he 'still believes' there are 'more honest, decent people' in the country than there are those in a Maga crowd. 'If I didn't, I'd move back to England,' he said. Elsewhere in the interview, Hamill revealed his dislike of US gun culture is such that he almost didn't accept his role in a forthcoming adaptation of Stephen King's horror novel The Long Walk. Hamill will play The Major, a man who runs an annual walking contest in a dystopian version of America that sees 100 young men walk continuously at a pace of four miles an hour – or they'll be shot to death. 'Francis Lawrence, the director, understood what was troubling me,' he said of his initial reluctance to take on the role. open image in gallery Hamill as The Major in 'The Long Walk' ( Lionsgate/YouTube ) 'American society is gun violence and it's hard to get past that, but as I spoke to him I realised this is just the guy. He said he would have been surprised if I wasn't troubled by it.' The actor went on to compare the film to recent ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] arrests in the country, saying agents wearing masks, with no identification, had been 'pulling people out of their cars'. 'They were just brutalising people, kneeling on their necks,' he said. 'When I made the movie I wasn't thinking in terms of it being timely but it's proven to be just that.' Hamill led the three original Star Wars movies – Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and Return of the Jedi (1983) – as Luke Skywalker alongside Carrie Fisher as Princess Leira and Harrison Ford as Han Solo. He reprised the role in all three films of the sequel trilogy: The Force Awakens (2015), The Last Jedi (2017), and The Rise of Skywalker (2019), as well as in numerous TV spin offs, including The Clone Wars and The Mandalorian.
The Guardian
20 minutes ago
- The Guardian
European leaders from ‘coalition of the willing' to hold conference call over Trump-Putin meeting
Update: Date: 2025-08-17T07:44:22.000Z Title: European leaders from 'coalition of the willing' to hold conference call ahead of Zelenskyy's talks with Trump Content: Welcome back to our live coverage of Russia's war on Ukraine. While Washington prepares to welcome Volodymyr Zelenskyy for crunch talks with Donald Trump on Monday, European leaders who make up the so-called 'coalition of the willing', a loose partnership of western countries pledging support for Ukraine, are set to hold a conference call on Sunday to try to protect a peace deal that does not reward Russia for its aggression. The virtual call is being co-chaired by the UK's prime minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz. At the Alaska summit on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded Ukraine withdraw from Donetsk and Luhansk as a condition for ending the war, but offered Trump a freeze along the remaining frontline, two sources with direct knowledge of the talks told the Guardian. European leaders have repeatedly said that Zelenskyy, who has been sidelined in much of the US-Russian diplomacy to date, must play a greater role in future talks as a lasting peace cannot be achieved without his input. In a statement released on Saturday after the Alaska talks between Trump and Putin ended without any ceasefire breakthrough, Starmer said in a statement posted to X: President Trump's efforts have brought us closer than ever before to ending Russia's illegal war in Ukraine. His leadership in pursuit of an end to the killing should be commended. While progress has been made, the next steps must be further talks involving President Zelenskyy. The path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without him. Stay with us as we will be keeping you up to date with the latest political and military developments throughout the day.
The Guardian
30 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy says Russia refusing ceasefire ‘complicates the situation' for ending war
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia refusing to accept a ceasefire was complicating efforts to end Moscow's more than three-year-long conflict, after a summit between the US and Russian presidents yielded no deal on ending the war: 'We see that Russia rebuffs numerous calls for a ceasefire and has not yet determined when it will stop the killing. This complicates the situation,' Zelenskyy said in a social media post late Saturday. 'If they lack the will to carry out a simple order to stop the strikes, it may take a lot of effort to get Russia to have the will to implement far greater – peaceful coexistence with its neighbors for decades.' Trump has said that he had agreed with Putin that a peace deal should be sought without the prior ceasefire that Ukraine and its European allies, until now with US support, have demanded. Ukrainian and European leaders fear that a straight-to-peace deal, skipping over a preliminary ceasefire, gives Moscow an upper hand in talks. After his meeting with Vladimir Putin on Friday, Donald Trump told European leaders that he supported a plan to end the Ukraine-Russia war by ceding unconquered land to Russia, the New York Times reported, citing two senior European officials. The officials said Trump will discuss the plan with Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday when the Ukrainian president visits the White House, adding that European leaders have been invited to join. Trump earlier said that Kyiv should make a deal with Moscow because 'Russia is a very big power, and they're not.' European officials will decide this weekend whether Zelenskyy will be accompanied on the visit to Washington, German foreign minister Johann Wadephul said on Saturday. European leaders, including Macron, Merz and Starmer, are set to discuss the issues with Zelenskyy on Sunday via video call ahead of his meeting with Trump, the French president's office said in a statement. A joint statement issued by European leaders said they were 'ready to work with US President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy towards a trilateral summit with European support' but 'it will be up to Ukraine to make decisions on its territory. International borders must not be changed by force.' The leaders of eight Nordic-Baltic nations said on Saturday that they remain steadfast in their support for Ukraine and to the efforts by Trump to end the Russian aggression against Ukraine. The leaders of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, and Sweden said in a statement that achieving peace between Ukraine and Russia requires a ceasefire and security guarantees for Ukraine: 'We welcome President Trump's statement that the US is prepared to participate in security guarantees. No limitations should be placed on Ukraine's armed forces or on its cooperation with other countries,' the statement said. At the Alaska summit, Putin demanded Ukraine withdraw from Donetsk and Luhansk as a condition for ending the war, but offered Trump a freeze along the remaining frontline, two sources with direct knowledge of the talks told the Guardian. Although Luhansk is almost entirely under Russian control, Ukraine still holds key parts of Donetsk, including the cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk and heavily fortified positions whose defence has cost tens of thousands of lives. Eight pages of US government planning documents for the summit meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin were left in a hotel printer in Anchorage before the meeting on Friday, NPR reported. The documents, which were posted online by NPR, appear to have been produced by Trump administration officials in charge of summit planning and included the precise locations and times for the scheduled meetings, as well the phone numbers of US government employees. Canadian prime minister Mark Carney welcomed what he said was US openness to providing security guarantees to Ukraine under a peace deal to end Russia's war against Kyiv. 'Robust and credible security guarantees are essential to any just and lasting peace. I welcome the openness of the United States to providing security guarantees as part of Coalition of the Willing's efforts,' Carney said in a statement. Donald Trump hand-delivered a personal letter from first lady Melania Trump to Russian leader Vladimir Putin raising the plight of Ukrainian and Russian children caught in the middle of the ongoing war between the two European countries, it was reported on Saturday. The contents of the letter were unknown – but two Trump administration officials told Reuters that it mentioned the abductions of children resulting from the war that broke out after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. However, the text of the letter, which was obtained and posted online by Fox News on Saturday, is extremely opaque and makes no reference at all to the abductions or transfer of children from Russian-occupied Ukraine to Russia. Vladimir Putin has said that his visit to Alaska was 'useful and timely', the Russian news agency Tass reported on Saturday. Putin also added that his conversation with Trump was 'sincere and substantive', adding that Russia respects the position of the US and also wants to settle the Ukrainian conflict peacefully. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov held calls on Saturday with his Turkish and Hungarian counterparts, the Russian foreign ministry said. The phone call between Lavrov and Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan took place at Turkey's initiative, the Russian foreign ministry said, and exchanged views on the Russia-US meeting, without elaborating further. The Ukrainian military said it had pushed Russian forces back by about 2km (1.2 miles) on part of the Sumy front in northern Ukraine. There was no immediate comment from Russia, which controls a little over 200 sq km in the region, according to Ukraine's battlefield mapping project DeepState.
