EXCLUSIVE 'Dave became too ill to speak. Losing his hair made him feel repellent. We both knew what was coming and I had to make a decision...' With extraordinary bravery, Hairy Bikers widow LILI MYERS reveals the story of his cancer battle for first time
It's early morning and I'm taking my dog for a walk. The spring sun is beginning to rise and the air is crisp, bringing my senses back to life after another broken night's sleep.
The night times are the most difficult. It's been three months since my husband Dave Myers died and, while the days are busy enough for me to push my thoughts and feelings aside, at night I'm alone, with nowhere to hide.
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The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Many Americans are witnessing immigration arrests for the first time and reacting
Adam Greenfield was home nursing a cold when his girlfriend raced in to tell him Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicles were pulling up in their trendy San Diego neighborhood. The poet and podcast producer grabbed his iPhone and bolted out the door barefoot, joining a handful of neighbors recording masked agents raiding a popular Italian restaurant nearby, as they yelled at the officers to leave. An hour later, the crowd had grown to nearly 75 people, with many in front of the agents' vehicles. 'I couldn't stay silent,' Greenfield said. 'It was literally outside of my front door.' More Americans are witnessing people being hauled off as they shop, exercise at the gym, dine out and otherwise go about their daily lives as President Donald Trump 's administration aggressively works to increase immigration arrests. As the raids touch the lives of people who aren't immigrants themselves, many Americans who rarely, if ever, participated in civil disobedience are rushing out to record the actions on their phones and launch impromptu protests. Arrests are being made outside gyms, busy restaurants Greenfield said on the evening of the May 30 raid, the crowd included grandparents, retired military members, hippies, and restaurant patrons arriving for date night. Authorities threw flash bangs to force the crowd back and then drove off with four detained workers, he said. 'To do this, at 5 o'clock, right at the dinner rush, right on a busy intersection with multiple restaurants, they were trying to make a statement,' Greenfield said. "But I don't know if their intended point is getting across the way they want it to. I think it is sparking more backlash.' Previously many arrests happened late at night or in the pre-dawn hours by agents waiting outside people's homes as they left for work or outside their work sites when they finished their day. When ICE raided another popular restaurant in San Diego in 2008, agents did it in the early morning without incident. White House border czar Tom Homan has said agents are being forced to do more arrests in communities because of sanctuary policies that limit cooperation with ICE in certain cities and states. ICE enforces immigration laws nationwide but seeks state and local help in alerting federal authorities of immigrants wanted for deportation and holding that person until federal officers take custody. Vice President JD Vance during a visit to Los Angeles on Friday said those policies have given agents 'a bit of a morale problem because they've had the local government in this community tell them that they're not allowed to do their job." 'When that Border Patrol agent goes out to do their job, they said within 15 minutes they have protesters, sometimes violent protesters who are in their face obstructing them,' he said. 'It was like a scene out of a movie' Melyssa Rivas had just arrived at her office in the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, California one morning last week when she heard the frightened screams of young women. She went outside to find the women confronting nearly a dozen masked federal agents who had surrounded a man kneeling on the pavement. 'It was like a scene out of a movie,' Rivas said. 'They all had their faces covered and were standing over this man who was clearly traumatized. And there are these young girls screaming at the top of their lungs.' As Rivas began recording the interaction, a growing group of neighbors shouted at the agents to leave the man alone. They eventually drove off in vehicles, without detaining him, video shows. Rivas spoke to the man afterward, who told her the agents had arrived at the car wash where he worked that morning, then pursued him as he fled on his bicycle. It was one of several recent workplace raids in the majority-Latino city. The same day, federal agents were seen at a Home Depot, a construction site and an LA Fitness gym. It wasn't immediately clear how many people had been detained. 'Everyone is just rattled,' said Alex Frayde, an employee at LA Fitness who said he saw the agents outside the gym and stood at the entrance, ready to turn them away as another employee warned customers about the sighting. In the end, the agents never came in. Communities protest around ICE buildings Arrests at immigration courts and other ICE buildings have also prompted emotional scenes as masked agents have turned up to detain people going to routine appointments and hearings. In the city of Spokane in rural eastern Washington state, hundreds of people rushed to protest outside an ICE building June 11 after former city councilor Ben Stuckart posted on Facebook. Stuckart wrote that he was a legal guardian of a Venezuelan asylum seeker who who went to check in at the ICE building only to be detained. His Venezuelan roommate was also detained. Both men had permission to live and work in the U.S. temporarily under humanitarian parole, Stuckart told The Associated Press. 'I am going to sit in front of the bus,' Stuckart wrote, referring to the van that was set to transport the two men to an ICE detention center in Tacoma. 'The Latino community needs the rest of our community now. Not tonight, not Saturday but right now!!!!' The city of roughly 230,000 is the seat of Spokane County, where just over half of voters cast ballots for Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Stuckart was touched to see his mother's caregiver among the demonstrators. 'She was just like, 'I'm here because I love your mom, and I love you, and if you or your friends need help, then I want to help,'' he said through tears. By evening, the Spokane Police Department sent over 180 officers, with some using pepper balls, to disperse protesters. Over 30 people were arrested, including Stuckart who blocked the transport van with others. He was later released. Aysha Mercer, a stay-at-home mother of three, said she is 'not political in any way, shape or form." But many children in her Spokane neighborhood -- who play in her yard and jump on her trampoline -- come from immigrant families, and the thought of them being affected by deportations was 'unacceptable," she said. She said she wasn't able to go to Stuckart's protest. But she marched for the first time in her life on June 14, joining millions in 'No Kings' protests across the country. 'I don't think I've ever felt as strongly as I do right this here second,' she said. _____
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Key moments from the sixth week of Sean 'Diddy' Combs' sex trafficking trial
The sixth week of the Sean 'Diddy' Combs' sex trafficking trial was shortened by a holiday and a juror's illness as prosecutors nearly concluded their case, setting the stage for a one- or two-day defense presentation next week. In the trial's first five weeks, jurors repeatedly heard testimony about drug-fueled marathon sex events described as 'freak-offs' by one of Combs' ex-girlfriends and as 'hotel nights' by another. In the sixth week, they were shown about 20 minutes of video recordings from the dayslong events. Combs, the founder of Bad Boy Entertainment, has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges in the trial, which continues Monday. Here are key moments from the past week: Jurors watch videos of 'freak-off' sex marathons they had heard so much about Jurors largely kept their reactions muted when they were shown about 20 minutes of recordings made by Combs of his then-girlfriends having sex with male sex workers at the elaborately staged 'freak-offs' or 'hotel nights.' Prosecutors say the events were proof of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges because Combs coerced his employees, associates and even his girlfriends to recruit and arrange flights for sex workers while his workers obtained drugs, stocked hotel rooms with baby oil, lubricant, condoms, candles and liquor and delivered cash. In her opening statement, defense lawyer Teny Geragos had called the videos 'powerful evidence that the sexual conduct in this case was consensual and not based on coercion.' Prosecutors played about 2 minutes of the recordings before the defense team aired about 18 minutes of the videos. The public and the press were unable to observe whether the prosecutors or defense lawyers had the better arguments after the judge ruled that neither the recordings nor the sound could be seen or heard by anyone except lawyers, the judge and the jury. Several jurors seemed to cast their eyes and sometimes turn their bodies away from the screens directly in front of them while the recordings played. The jurors listened through earphones supplied by the court, as did Combs and lawyers. A juror is ejected from the panel by a judge who questions whether he has an agenda Judge Arun Subramanian started the week by dismissing a juror whose conflicting answers about whether he lived in New Jersey or New York convinced the judge he was a threat to the integrity of the trial. Subramanian said the juror's answers during jury selection and in the week before he was excused 'raised serious concerns as to the juror's candor and whether he shaded answers to get on and stay on the jury.' 'The inconsistencies — where the juror has lived and with whom — go to straightforward issues as to which there should not have been any doubts, and the answers also go to something vital: the basic qualifications of a juror to serve,' the judge said. Residents of New Jersey would not be permitted to sit on a New York federal jury. A day before Subramanian ruled, defense lawyers argued fiercely against dismissal, saying that replacing the Black juror with a white alternate juror so late in the trial would change the diverse demographics of the jury and require a mistrial. The jurors are anonymous for the Combs trial. It wasn't the only issue regarding jurors for the week. The judge, angered by a media report about the questioning of another juror the week before that occurred in a sealed proceeding, warned lawyers that they could face civil and criminal sanctions if such a leak happened again. That juror was not dismissed. And Wednesday's court session had to be canceled after a juror reported "vertigo symptoms" on the way to the courthouse. A defense lawyer predicts a presentation measured in hours rather than days Defense attorney Marc Agnifilo seemed to close the door on any chance Combs would testify when he said Friday that the defense presentation would be finished Tuesday or Wednesday the following week, even if prosecutors don't rest until late Monday. It is not uncommon for defendants to choose not to testify at criminal trials. Besides being exposed to cross-examination by prosecutors, the testimony can be used by the government against the defendant should there be a need for a retrial. Also, if there is a conviction, the judge can conclude that the jury believed the defendant lied on the stand. Another former Combs' employee requires immunity to testify about working for him Brendan Paul, fresh off the college basketball courts where he once played in a cameo role for Syracuse University, joined Combs' companies as a personal assistant in late 2022 and was warned by a friend who had worked for Combs about what was ahead. 'He told me to get in and get out,' Paul recalled for the jury, citing the endless days and always-on-edge existence. 'If you have a girlfriend, break up with her. And you're never going to see your family.' The friend also instructed him to 'build a rolodex of clientele and get out,' he said. Paul said he worked 80 to 100 hours a week for a music power broker who received 'thousands and thousands' of text messages and emails a day. He was paid $75,000 salary initially, but it was raised in January 2024 to $100,000. He said Combs told him he 'doesn't take no for an answer' and wanted his staff to 'move like Seal Team Six.' Several times, Paul said, he picked up drugs for Combs and knew to keep his boss out of the drug trade because 'it was very important to keep his profile low. He's a celebrity.' The job came to an abrupt end in March 2024 when Paul was arrested at a Miami airport on drug charges after a small amount of cocaine that he said he picked up in Combs' room that morning was mistakenly put in his travel bag as he prepared to join Combs on a trip to the Bahamas. The charges were later dropped in a pretrial diversion program. Paul said he hadn't seen Combs since.
Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Wisconsin sues Miami over transfer tampering in a legal first
June 21 - The University of Wisconsin sued the University of Miami on Friday, formally accusing the Florida school of tampering with a football player under a financial contract with the Badgers. The decision to sue could become a watershed moment in the current era of college athletics. Never before has a university accused another of tampering with one of its athletes, who did not have contracts before the dawn of name, image and likeness rights this decade. "While we reluctantly bring this case, we stand by our position that respecting and enforcing contractual obligations is essential to maintaining a level playing field," the school said in a statement provided to ESPN on Friday. Though Wisconsin's lawsuit only refers to the player as Student Athlete A, the subject of the case is cornerback Xavier Lucas, who left Wisconsin and enrolled at Miami over the winter without ever entering the transfer portal. It was reported at the time that Wisconsin refused to put Lucas' name in the transfer portal. Lucas signed a two-year contract with the Badgers in December 2024 -- a deal that gave the football program nonexclusive rights to use his NIL but also prohibited him from committing to enroll or participate in athletics at another school. Lucas enrolled at Miami in January. Wisconsin's lawsuit alleges that a Miami staffer and a prominent alumnus of the school met with Lucas and his family and offered him money to transfer. --Field Level Media
