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Sky News AU
01-08-2025
- Health
- Sky News AU
British woman, 23, who died of cancer after refusing chemotherapy had ‘five coffee enemas a day'
A 23-year-old British woman who died after refusing conventional cancer treatment was allegedly undergoing 'five coffee enemas a day' under the care of her mother, a controversial health influencer. Paloma Shemirani's brother made the claim this week during an inquest into her death, which came seven months after doctors told the Cambridge graduate she had an 80 per cent chance of surviving non-Hodgkin lymphoma with chemotherapy, according to the BBC. Instead, she pursued an unproven alternative cancer regimen promoted by her mother, Kate Shemirani, who claimed to have used it successfully in the past. Paloma died of a heart attack on July 24 last year, caused by an untreated tumor. In written statements before her death, she denied having cancer at all, calling the diagnosis an 'absurd fantasy, with no proof,' per the BBC. She also expressed fears that chemotherapy might leave her infertile. 'I do not want to undergo such a harsh treatment that could even kill me when there is a possibility this is not cancer,' she wrote. Her parents, Kate and Faramarz Shemirani, told the BBC they believe Paloma 'died as a result of medical interventions given without confirmed diagnosis or lawful consent.' The outlet has not been able to substantiate their claims. Paloma's brothers, Sebastian and Gabriel, have publicly blamed their mother for fostering her distrust in modern medicine. 'My sister has passed away as a direct consequence of my mum's actions and beliefs and I don't want anyone else to go through the same pain or loss that I have,' Gabriel told the BBC. Growing up in the small Sussex town of Uckfield, Gabriel said the 'soundtrack' to their household included conspiracy theorist Alex Jones — with claims that the Sandy Hook school shooting was staged and that 9/11 'was an inside job.' Kate Shemirani's distrust of conventional medicine intensified after she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2012, according to her sons. Though she underwent surgery to remove the tumor, she has publicly credited her recovery to Gerson therapy — an alternative approach that aims to 'detoxify' the body through a strict vegan diet, natural juices, supplements and frequent coffee enemas. The FDA has not approved Gerson therapy for treating cancer or any other condition. Major cancer organizations warn against its use, citing a lack of scientific evidence and the risk of serious side effects. Kate Shemirani, a prominent figure in alternative health circles, is a former nurse who lost her license after the UK's Nursing and Midwifery Council found she used her professional status to spread 'distorted propaganda' during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Mirror. In a 2021 interview with Sky News, she claimed that 'no vaccine has ever been proven safe and no vaccine has ever been proven effective,' and said she had seen 'no evidence' to suggest 'a pandemic exists.' Later that year, during an anti-lockdown rally in London's Trafalgar Square, Kate compared healthcare workers administering COVID vaccines to Nazi war criminals and falsely claimed the virus was being spread by the 'downright deadly' shots. Following the rally, her son Sebastian called for her to be 'prosecuted under existing laws' for her comments. 'It's only a matter of time before … somebody acts on the bad advice that she's giving the country,' he told BBC Radio 4's 'Today,' adding that he is worried his mother is 'beyond help.' In written statements before her death, Paloma described her mother as 'an extremely forceful advocate for natural health' who was often 'misquoted,' according to the BBC. The ongoing inquest into Paloma's death is focused on whether the care she received was appropriate. Before she died, she expressed confidence in Gerson therapy, saying she was 'delighted' with the alternative treatment and 'sure' she would 'make a full recovery' if allowed to continue. The investigation also comes a few months after the premiere of the Netflix series 'Apple Cider Vinegar,' which was based on real-life Australian health blogger Belle Gibson. Gibson amassed a huge online following based on claims that she had terminal brain cancer — and cured it with her wellness-driven lifestyle and diet. She monetized that through her app, Whole Pantry, which offered lifestyle advice and recipes. But she later admitted that 'none of it's true' — not the cancer, not the cure. Originally published as British woman, 23, who died of cancer after refusing chemotherapy had 'five coffee enemas a day'
Forbes
28-07-2025
- Forbes
Shannon Watts Wants You To Live On Fire—Here Is Her Formula For Finding Your Spark
WASHINGTON, DC — SEPTEMBER 25: Shannon Watts is the founder of the gun safety group, Moms Demand ... More Action, the nations largest grassroots organization fighting to end gun violence. For Just Asking Profile. (photo by Andre Chung for The Washington Post via Getty Images) Why do some people take a stand against injustice while others simply stand by? Shannon Watts, a former communications executive, remembers the moment when she could no longer stay silent. She was a mother of five in her 40s in December 2012, the day after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that killed 26 children and teachers. She, like so many others, was heartbroken and angry. Yet when she went to her yoga teacher training class that day, the teacher never mentioned the tragedy. Instead, the class went on business as usual. Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action and author of "Fired Up" For Watts it might have been akin to feeling like you're living in an alternate reality, where you're witnessing something horrible happening that could be prevented in the future if only it was addressed, yet no one seems to be doing anything significant to stop it. It was at that moment that Watts realized she could not possibly pretend to care about cat-cow poses—she was too enraged. Rather than stay in class to complete her teacher training certification, she walked out. 'I couldn't stand the thought of living in a world where gun industry profits were prioritized over children's safety. The only way to stay sane was to act,' she says. But she wondered what exactly could she, a forty-something mom from the Midwest, do? She went home and made a list of all the ways she might be able to get involved in gun violence prevention, which ranged from donating to an organization to meeting with law makers to becoming an activist (which she said felt to her almost fringe). What Watts really wanted to do was to join an army of moms working for change like the mainstream organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), but one that was demanding gun safety. So she Googled, 'organizations like MADD for gun control.' Nothing came up except for some think tanks mostly run by men in Washington, D.C. 'I had watched the shootings in Columbine, and Virginia Tech and Gabby Giffords and on and on, and no one had done anything,' says Watts. '[With Sandy Hook] I was already seeing pundits and politicians, mostly conservatives, saying, 'this has nothing to do with guns,' and 'gun laws won't do anything,' and I thought to myself, 'They aren't going to do anything again.'' The Facebook Post That Launched A Movement Since a MADD for gun violence prevention didn't exist, Watts decided to create it herself. Though she had only 75 'friends' on Facebook at the time, she went home after leaving her yoga training and created a new Facebook page on a whim called 'One Million Moms For Gun Control,' urging mothers to march in Washington in 2013, demand common sense gun safety laws, and share the post to spread the message. That post went viral and was the first spark that helped Watts embolden millions of women to take a stand. 'I think the reason it went viral and the reason it resonated so much with other women is because we hold only about 25% of the 500,000 elected positions in this country and we're less than 5% of Fortune 1000 CEOs, which means we aren't making the policies that protect our families and communities,' says Watts. 'In that moment [of the Sandy Hook shooting] we knew that we had to use our voices and our votes. We knew that if we mobilized, we could make a difference.' Watts didn't have political or organizing experience and knew next to nothing about gun safety. She had a debilitating fear of public speaking and severe ADHD. Despite an inner voice telling her she wasn't qualified and outside critics telling her she would never succeed, Watts stepped up to found Moms Demand Action, the largest women-led non-profit in the nation. Moms Demand Action lit a fire under more than two million supporters to help drive legislation to prevent gun violence, stopped the industry's agenda in statehouses 90% of the time, and elected thousands of candidates who supported common sense gun reform legislation. Despite the voices telling her that she wasn't the right person to ignite a fight against one of the most powerful special interest groups that ever existed, Watts says, 'Turns out, this neurodiverse, reserved, middle-aged mom in the Midwest was exactly the right person for the job.' Creating Change From The Outside In Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, is summoning the audacity of women in her new ... More book, "Fired Up." Her activism in confronting injustice not only created change in the outside world, finding her courage and overcoming setbacks also transformed Watts on the inside—as it did for many of the volunteers in her growing community. Watts' experience in starting Moms Demand Action has taught her a few things about standing in your power, and she has a rallying cry for women everywhere: Rather than spending your time and energy trying to find your purpose, focus on living on purpose. Watts has created a formula for how to do this in her new book Fired Up: How To Turn Your Spark Into A Flame And Come Alive At Any Age. 'Living on fire means figuring out what's limiting you and what's calling you,' says Watts. 'What I have seen so often is that men are taught to fulfill their desires, and women are taught to fulfill their obligations. There's so many things that society tells us that we have to do instead of what we want to do. Women don't fear their fire because they're weak, it's because they are wise. We see all the obstacles set up in front of us, and we realize it's much easier to pursue our obligations.' In Fired Up, she says she found three false fires, or things that we incorrectly believe will result in our fulfillment. One of them is finding your purpose. Watts doesn't think the goal is to find that one single purpose for your life that will make it meaningful, but rather it is about finding fulfillment in big and small ways to the very end of your life. Happiness is the second false fire, or the notion of chasing this feeling of being happy all the time, as if it's a constant state that we can achieve. Busyness is the third false fire, which makes women believe that being busy and productive is what leads to fulfillment. Instead what we need right now in the world is for women to ask themselves what they truly want, regardless of what outside voices or society tells women they should want (Watts says your fire starts where all your shoulds end) and to come alive. 'The fire formula is to figure out what your desires, values, and abilities are, and to bring those back into alignment over and over again.' Watts says that happier, more fulfilled women means a better country, a better democracy, stronger families, and a better government. 'There is data that shows that when women are elected to office instead of doing things that prop themselves up, they tend to make more policies that lift all people up,' says Watts. 'I'm not asking everyone to be an activist—although I do think we all have a role to play in helping democracy—but rather it is about finding your personal, political, professional fulfillment. For some women that might be having a hard conversation or going to therapy or asking for a promotion, and for others it might be as large as leaving a relationship or career or finally deciding to get involved as an activist.' The book highlights some research that points out one of the biggest regrets people have on their deathbed is that they wished they'd had the courage to live a life true to themselves rather than the life others expected of them. The courage to do so calls for finding ways to liberate yourself from the inside out when pushing against external structures—whether that be pushback from friends or family who might criticize you for pursuing your desires to systems that weren't set up to support you to succeed. If the fire you want to ignite does include going down the route of an activist, blow back is unavoidable and could be serious. Watts had to overcome some scary blow back from gun extremists, from threats of sexual violence to threats of death to herself and to her family. She recalls a time early on when she called her local police department after receiving a threat from an extremist. The officer who came to her house told her, 'Well ma'am, that's what you get when you mess with the second amendment.' Summoning The Audacity Of Women In that moment, Watts knew the point of the blow back was to silence and intimidate her, and she had to make a conscious choice to double back or double down. It wasn't easy in any way, but once she made the intentional decision to proceed, she says her family and community of volunteers at Moms Demand Action helped her have the strength to keep going. 'I didn't want to stay small; I wanted to be brave.' Watts' hope for Fired Up is that it serves as a handbook for women to learn to handle blowback, which she believes is all predictable and is not at all personal. She says, 'The degree to which you can grow your fire is directly proportional to the amount of blow back you can withstand.' The common thread that Watts has found is that her fulfillment comes from summoning the audacity of other women. 'I want you to get to the end of your life and feel like you burned and lived a life that's authentic to you,' says Watts. 'Some of the most amazing women I interviewed in this book are over 70 and still doing amazing things. They're living in a way that makes them feel alive, and I think we all deserve that.' To help more women learn to do that, she has launched Firestarter University, a free online course for a year that starts in September to bring together an action-driven curriculum and a supportive community for people who want to prioritize their personal, professional, or political desires. 'Now more than ever we need to know our neighbors, we need to be having conversations—given the post-pandemic world, given polarization, given social media,' says Watts. 'If you look at the chasm—particularly among white women voters in the last election—college educated and non-college educated women are not having these vital conversations we need to be having about how to improve our lives and our communities together. I'm really hopeful that this spurs more of that dialogue."
Yahoo
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Alex Jones Breaks Down in Tears Over Trump's Final Epstein Report
Even Donald Trump's most sycophantic followers are turning on him over his administration's handling of the Epstein files. Against the expertise of individuals who had worked on the case for decades, Attorney General Pam Bondi suggested in January that the pedophilic sex trafficker had maintained a 'client list,' supercharging ideas and theories about which high-powered individuals could have been involved in Jeffrey Epstein's crimes. But the administration's language changed abruptly on Monday, when the Department of Justice posted a memo confirming that no such 'incriminating client list' existed, undercutting Bondi's language. Far-right influencers who had absorbed themselves into the details of the case refused to believe that Bondi had misstepped—instead, they interpreted the sudden reversal as an administration cover-up. 'So I'm going to go throw up, actually,' said Alex Jones, the Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist. 'Because I have integrity, and I just really need the Trump administration to succeed and to save this country, and they were doing so much good, and then for them to do something like this, it tears my guts out.' But Jones wasn't the only ex-Trump ally to lose his marbles over the update. Laura Loomer, who was not one of the lucky far-right influencers to receive an Epstein files 'binder' from the White House earlier this year, called on Trump to throw his attorney general out of the government. 'President Trump should fire Blondi for lying to his base and creating a liability for his administration,' Loomer wrote on X, referring to Bondi as an 'embarrassment.' 'I hope Trump realizes what an Fing LIAR Pam Blondi is,' Loomer continued in another post. 'She's useless. Covering for pedophiles and never arresting criminals.' And Trump's biggest 2024 campaign donor was similarly appalled by the DOJ memo. 'What's the time? Oh look, it's no-one-has-been-arrested-o'clock again,' Elon Musk posted. The whole situation has thrown Trump's position with his conspiracy-minded supporters into a bit of a pickle. The 79-year-old billionaire has achieved messiah-like status within the QAnon conspiracy circle for years thanks to the group's principal belief that, despite his being named and photographed as an associate of Epstein's and being a reputed fraudster, and despite being found liable by a jury for sexually abusing Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll, Trump will rid the world of Satan-worshipping, liberal-minded pedophiles who run the government and media.
Cosmopolitan
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Cosmopolitan
'My sister was killed by my ‘nurse' mum's twisted conspiracy theories: nobody else should go through this'
It's hard to explain what being a twin is like. You don't see yourself as a singular person; you come as a pair. It feels like you have — or should have — a buddy to go through every life experience with. My twin, Paloma, died last July at the age of 23. From a cancer that doctors initially said she had a high chance of beating with chemotherapy. But Paloma didn't get the recommended treatment – because, in my view, she was blindsided by our mum's dangerous anti-medicine conspiracy theories. That's also the case for countless others targeted by influencers pushing medical misinformation on social media. It's why I decided to speak firstly to BBC Panorama and BBC's Marianna in Conspiracyland podcast about what happened to my sister. Growing up, Alex Jones — an American conspiracy theorist who claimed the Sandy Hook school shooting was staged — was the soundtrack to Paloma and I being dropped off at school. The interest in conspiracy theories started with my dad, Faramarz; he's Iranian and, because of his upbringing, has a distrust of the US government due to negative foreign intervention. My mum soon joined in. Quickly, the idea that 9/11 and the Boston bombings were an 'inside job' became accepted in our family and casually discussed over the dinner table. As children, you naturally absorb your parents' beliefs: suncream was suddenly 'toxic' and it's embarrassing to admit, but at one point my older brother Sebastian and I were convinced the royal family were shape-shifting lizards. Paloma was different. When Sebastian and I were watching conspiracy theory videos on YouTube and nodding along to what our parents told us, she didn't engage quite so much. Paloma was more interested in sewing her own clothes, playing board games and reading Spanish literature — or making me laugh. People didn't expect her to have such a goofy sense of humour, because of how she looked, but she loved making up funny rap songs using Shakespearean language or playing weird little characters. But I found our parents' conspiracy theories were impossible to tap out of completely. The house was an extremely difficult environment to grow up in. Ultimately, Paloma just wanted her mother's care, like anyone. She was a pacifier. If we ate something that we were told as kids was toxic, we'd get in trouble; Paloma would never argue back in the same way Sebastian or I would. Things intensified when Paloma and I were around 11 years old: our mum was diagnosed with breast cancer. This was 2012, and her mistrust of medicine had fully taken hold. She was a qualified nurse but hadn't worked in the field for over a decade, instead opening an aesthetics business. At first, she went along with the doctor's advice and had surgery. This is what cured her. But instead of follow-up chemotherapy or radiotherapy, from what I remember mum opted for a regime of juices, mistletoe injections and enemas, a much-disputed regime known as Gerson therapy*. She then started crediting this with her recovery rather than the operations. Mum began giving us 'healing' juices, without telling us what was really in them, and describing herself as an 'authentic' health warrior who had seen the 'truth'. She soon began posting her ideas online and building a Facebook following, including posting about her own breast cancer. As my mum's conspiracy theory beliefs continued to ramp up and spiral out of control, my brother and I started to break away from her. As teenagers we tried to stay out of the family home as much as possible, and after spending more time around other people, Sebastian and I began to realise that perhaps the conspiracy theories that mum obsessed over weren't actually exposing 'dark hidden truths' after all. Mum then began styling herself as 'Kate Shemirani, the Natural Nurse in a toxic world' online (although her real name is Kay) and charged her 'health and truth-seeking' followers over £100 for a personal consultation. She sells 'healing' apricot kernels and appears on far-right podcasts, with the likes of Tommy Robinson, and billing herself as a Christian. Leaning into that religious aspect and language, mum labelled herself as a 'true seer' with the power to highlight the 'medical industry's corruption'. I think she enjoyed feeling important, like someone who could translate what's 'really going on' in the world to the 'sheeple'. It worked — and her following grew. Ignoring the science The pandemic saw my mum's online notoriety soar: she claimed the virus was a political tool to gain access to — and change — people's DNA through vaccines, and took part in a London rally which led to a Met Police investigation and to her being struck off the Nursing and Midwifery Council in 2021. Around that time, mum's accounts were banned from social media and she entered what I call 'the wilderness years', where she was receiving less attention online. We had all moved out of home by then, Paloma was at Cambridge, studying Spanish and Portuguese, and our contact with our mum was sporadic and hectic. I could tell it impacted Paloma, who did want to be able to have the consistent loving relationship that Kay always withheld from her. After graduating, Paloma moved back into the family home with her. She was nervous, as, over the years their relationship had grown strained. Paloma told me how mum started demanding she pay rent, once even moving all of Paloma's stuff into storage after she spent a weekend away. Paloma then moved into a flat with a housemate and began living independently. But not long after, she began to experience chest pains. A mass was identified. After testing and a biopsy, doctors called Paloma a few days before Christmas in 2023, asking her to fly home from a trip to Sweden she was on with her boyfriend at the time. She then phoned me crying from the hospital, saying doctors believed she had non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a form of cancer that can be aggressive. I was told the medical team had given Paloma an 80% chance of being cured with chemotherapy. I also found out that when Paloma called our mum to tell her the updates, desperately wanting support, mum's mistrust of medicine was unleashed once more. Only this time, she wasn't making decisions about her own body. Mum messaged Paloma's boyfriend at the time saying: Tell Paloma not to verbally consent to chemo or any treatment. She must not sign. In my opinion, she saw that Paloma was engaging with doctors and wanted to stop that. Initially, I believe mum showed Paloma the affection she'd always wanted — but also began to quickly press upon her the idea that chemotherapy was akin to 'pumping mustard gas' into her body, when she was in a moment of extreme vulnerability. Mum, I suspect, would have promised Paloma that an 'all-natural cure' would keep her fertility and hair intact too, tapping into understandable fears and using herself as a misleading example. She then gradually began to isolate Paloma from her social circle. I last saw my twin sister on Christmas Day 2023, after trying to convince her to stop being treated by my mum. Instead of traditional chemotherapy, Paloma was relying on fruit juices and infrared saunas to heal her. Ideas that mum had long broadcast to the world: she had been allowed properly back online when Twitter became X and reinstated her account. Before too long, mum was soon using my sister's illness as a narrative to lure followers in. Paloma died a few months later, in July last year. Paloma passed away after having a heart attack and spent several days on life support before the machine was switched off. The heart attack was caused by the growing tumour, which could have potentially been treated if she had followed her doctor's advice. I only found this out through lawyers; it's my view that my mum actively hid Paloma's death from me. We were in the middle of a legal case that I had launched, because I wanted an assessment of the appropriate medical treatment for my sister. In one X post, to her 81,000 followers, Kay — who I no longer call mum, as she doesn't fulfil the role of a mother in any way in my eyes — claims Paloma was 'gaslit' by doctors and experimented on by medics. She accuses the NHS of running a medical experiment on her which went wrong as her real cause of death, suggesting they wanted to steal her organs. Kay even sent a text to one of Paloma's friends after she passed away, saying, 'This way [without chemotherapy], Paloma is intact and beautiful with all of her organs as she wanted. Her body is now perfect and healed, because she is with our Lord and Creator, and that is my faith. Ultimately, she returned to it all on her own.' Kay has since issued a press statement with my dad, saying any allegations against the two of them are 'state-sponsored propaganda designed to silence the truth of what happened to our daughter and reframe a preventable death as parental misconduct — despite overwhelming legal, medical and forensic documentation to the contrary.' She continues to deny that Paloma ever even had cancer. An inquest is due to start soon. When Kay and my dad, Faramarz, were contacted by Cosmopolitan, both said that Paloma's death is a sensitive family matter, denied any wrongdoing, and stated they would pursue legal action if false statements were published. However, neither provided any evidence to the allegations that they actively contributed to Paloma's death and promote conspiracy theories. Kay stated, 'I strongly reject every claim made against me, many of which are factually incorrect, deeply misleading, and legally actionable.' Faramarz sought to highlight that 'Paloma's case is the subject of an ongoing police investigation and a forthcoming coroner inquest.' For the past year, I haven't been able to grieve properly. My life has been dominated by police, coroners, and lawyers. While some have been kind, others have not always treated me like someone whose sister, who had her whole life ahead of her, has just died. Paloma's death has also opened my eyes to bigger power structures at play in the world, and now it feels like my duty as a brother to speak out on her behalf. Conspiracy theorists, like my mother, scare people into thinking there's hidden evil in the world and present themselves as being the only ones honest and brave enough to bring it to light. They take grains of truth — such as the pharmaceutical industry not being perfect and doctors not always getting it right — and real concerns, and twist them into something dangerous. In my sister's case, into something life-threatening. This current anti-medicine and toxic wellness movement — which is only growing — is a beast with many heads that feeds on fear. Political threads run through it; one strand links to the far right and the conservative stream, which is quite Americanised, and sees 'tradwives' espousing the benefits of drinking raw milk, not vaccinating their children and going back to the 1950s to adopt a 'purer' way of living. Even though people took thalidomide back then, which caused birth defects. The other strand is more liberal, praising Goop, astrology, 'trusting your intuition', and 'dialling into your true self', sometimes at the expense of legitimate science. Both branches often have a (seemingly healthy) thin, white blonde woman as the poster child. Someone who might appear aspirational, who meets traditional beauty standards, and who presents themselves as being in control. Wellness conspiracy theorists recognise real issues, like contraceptive pills having side effects, and hijack them in different ways, encouraging the rejection of modern medicine as a way of 'reclaiming bodily autonomy' or 'clean living'. They dress up dangerous ideas as 'female empowerment' and even though prior to her diagnosis I wasn't aware of Paloma actively buying into any of this, I can imagine these narratives would have been rattling around her subconsciousness. When trying Gerson therapy, Paloma did post about it on her Instagram account, sharing photos of berry porridge labelled as 'food that cures' and infrared sauna blankets to 'detox through sweat', and it was hard for friends to call it out as concerning. Since sharing Paloma's story, I've also received dozens of messages from people saying they've lost their sister, mother or friend to anti-medicine propaganda. A few people have mentioned dads and brothers, but it does mostly seem to be women. It has highlighted, to me, the subtle differences between men and women; if a woman talks about being ill or worries about her health, there's this element of 'oh, the silly girl is a hypochondriac!' whereas if a man said the same thing, he'd be taken more seriously. I imagine that could also make 'alternative' health approaches feel a lot more appealing to women. This mistrust of medicine – and obsession with 'clean girl living'** — is like a dormant virus: it has the potential to grow from a passing interest to a real obsession, then when someone has a health event it can cause them to start questioning if trusting doctors is really the right thing to do. I don't want anyone else to experience a loss like mine because of that. I remember visiting Paloma at university a couple of years back, and she kept asking me to play Monopoly Deal but I brushed her off, saying I was too busy. I'd give the world to play a game with her now. To see her have the future she dreamed of and deserved. But that will never happen. Because, in my view, she lost her life because of Kay's conspiracy theories. Listen to the Marianna in Conspiracyland 2 podcast on BBC Sounds and on Mondays at 9am on BBC Radio 4. BBC Panorama: Cancer Conspiracy Theories: Why Did Our Sister Die? is available on BBC iPlayer now. Jennifer Savin is Cosmopolitan UK's multiple award-winning Features Editor, who was crowned Digital Journalist of the Year for her work tackling the issues most important to young women. She regularly covers breaking news, cultural trends, health, the royals and more, using her esteemed connections to access the best experts along the way. She's grilled everyone from high-profile politicians to A-list celebrities, and has sensitively interviewed hundreds of people about their real life stories. In addition to this, Jennifer is widely known for her own undercover investigations and campaign work, which includes successfully petitioning the government for change around topics like abortion rights and image-based sexual abuse. Jennifer is also a published author, documentary consultant (helping to create BBC's Deepfake Porn: Could You Be Next?) and a patron for Y.E.S. (a youth services charity). Alongside Cosmopolitan, Jennifer has written for The Times, Women's Health, ELLE and numerous other publications, appeared on podcasts, and spoken on (and hosted) panels for the Women of the World Festival, the University of Manchester and more. In her spare time, Jennifer is a big fan of lipstick, leopard print and over-ordering at dinner. Follow Jennifer on Instagram, X or LinkedIn.
USA Today
08-07-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
MAGA turns on Pam Bondi, Trump administration over Epstein files
WASHINGTON − President Donald Trump's top law enforcement officials are on the receiving end of MAGA criticism − including some calls for their resignations − over a recent review of materials related to Jeffrey Epstein that don't match their prior public comments about the disgraced financier. A recent memo by the FBI and Justice Department concluded that Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while in custody for sex trafficking charges. It also said their "exhaustive review" found no evidence of an Epstein "client list." Trump's supporters have pushed for his administration to release details about Epstein's associates, and many are expressing displeasure at this latest development. "I remember when a bimbo Barbie was installed as AG and then all of these child sex crimes were wiped under the rug," conservative activist and social media influencer Laura Loomer wrote on X July 8, referring to Attorney General Pam Bondi. Loomer, a staunch Trump ally, also added a direct appeal to Vice President JD Vance, asking him to "please encourage President Trump to fire Pam Blondi. She is a disgrace." In a February interview with Fox News, Bondi was asked about a "client list" and seemed to confirm its existence by saying, "It's sitting on my desk right now to review." The attorney general walked those statements back during a July 8 Cabinet meeting, clarifying that she had been referring to the entirety of the Epstein case materials. While campaigning in 2024, Trump suggested he would have "no problem" releasing more details on the Epstein investigation. Bondi said in a February statement the Department of Justice was following through and "lifting the veil on the disgusting actions of Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators." Other Trump appointees, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino, were once leading voices questioning the official record of Epstein's death. Now members of the administration, Patel and Bongino have seemingly reversed course and rejected conspiracy theories that he had died by murder rather than suicide. Trump, in the July 8 Cabinet meeting, also blasted a reporter for posing a question about Epstein, saying: "Are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable." "I mean, I can't believe you're asking a question on Epstein," the president added. But some of the president's most fervent allies are coming out against his administration over the issue of Epstein. "I just really need the Trump administration to succeed and to save this country, and they're doing so much good. And then for them to do something like this tears my guts out," radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones said in a video posted to X July 7. Jones was ordered by courts in 2022 to pay more than $1 billion in damages to the families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre, after promoting false claims that the deadly shooting was a hoax.
