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Celine Dion has reportedly sold her mammoth Las Vegas residence to private equity investor Chuck Esserman

Former This Morning presenter Phillip Schofield has given his first set of media interviews since his departure from the ITV daytime show and his revelation that he had an affair with a younger male colleague in comments made in May. In a statement issued to The Daily Mail last week, the broadcaster confirmed he had a “consensual on-off relationship” with the individual and while it was “unwise”, it was “not illegal” and is “now over”. “I am painfully conscious that I have lied to my employers at ITV, to my colleagues and friends, to my agents, to the media and therefore the public and most importantly of all to my family. “I am so very, very sorry, as I am for having been unfaithful to my wife,” he said. When asked by The Sun if he “groomed” the young co-worker, Schofield – who vaped during the interview – said he “did not” and that there were “accusations of all sorts of things”. A lengthier conversation, though, came in the form of a 45-minute long interview with the BBC’s Media Editor, Amol Rajan, which aired on Friday. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter If you’re in a hurry, here’s the key lines from the powerful interview. 1. “I understand how Caroline Flack felt” With Rajan starting the discussion by asking Schofield how he was, Schofield referenced the late ITV presenter who died by suicide in February 2020 following intense tabloid coverage of her life. She had been charged with assaulting her boyfriend after an altercation in December 2019, and left her role presenting the ITV2 reality show Love Island. Schofield said: “Last week, if my daughters hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t be here. They guarded me and wouldn’t let me out of their sight. “It’s like a weird numbness. I know that’s a selfish point of view, but you come to a point where you just think, ‘how much are you supposed to take? “’If all of those people who write all of that stuff, do they ever think that there’s actually a person at the other end?’” 2. “Do you want me to die?” In further comments about the “relentless” remarks made about him online and in the media, Schofield said: “If you don’t think that is going to have the most catastrophic effect on someone’s mind… Do you want me to die? “Because that’s where I am. I have lost everything. “My girls saved my life … Last week, they haven’t left me for a moment. They’ve been by my side every moment, because they’re scared to let me out of their sight. “They said to me, ‘don’t you dare do this on our watch. We’re supposed to be looking after you.’ “If my girls hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t be here, because I don’t see a future. And so how much do you want a man to take? “And this is how Caroline Flack felt, and it didn’t stop.” 3. His message to Holly Willoughby On the same day he “put the statement up” – suggesting it was the one posted to his Instagram Story announcing his departure from This Morning, rather than the one to the Mail – Schofield wrote to his former co-presenter on WhatsApp. He said: “I know you can’t reply, or you’re probably not allowed to, but please know that I am so desperately, desperately sorry.” He added that she did not reply to the message, said he did not see their relationship as broken and that he does not “have a problem with Holly at all” 4. The “homophobia” behind the scrutiny Referring to “new friends” he has made off the back of the scandal, Schofield revealed one “very prominent public figure” phoned him to say they had “never seen such homophobia in my life”. He continued: “If it’s a gay relationship, then suddenly it raises eyebrows. It’s wrong. People do find each other attractive in different age groups.” The broadcaster said the fact it has become “so massive” is “predominantly homophobic” and that he has become a “victim of hate”. 5. “We were mates” Explaining why he agreed to the BBC interview, Schofield said: “There is an innocent person here who didn’t do anything wrong, who is vulnerable, and probably feels like I do.” He confirmed he was paying for legal advice for the unnamed younger man, and last spoke to him a “couple of weeks” ago to instruct lawyers for him. The individual – who was 15 at the time - was followed by Schofield on Twitter following a visit to the school, and the presenter said “there has not been any whiff of impropriety” on the social media platform, where he follows more than 11,000 people. He went on to add that the man was 20 when Schofield first had sexual contact with him. “He’d been working with the show for a few months and we became mates – we were mates, around the studios, we hung out together. “And then, in my dressing room one day, something happened … It happened maybe four or five times over the next few months. “We weren’t boyfriends, we weren’t in a relationship,” Schofield said, and went on to say he did not love him. 6. “I’ve never abused my power in any way” When asked by Rajan if what was “morally wrong” about the situation was that there was an “abuse of power”, Schofield replied to say he has “never abused my power in any way” and that he is “not a bully”. The conversation soon moved to the work environment at ITV and comments made by Dr Ranj Singh, at which point the presenter stressed: “There is no toxicity, there is no bullying, there is no discrimination at This Morning. “All I see are angry people shouting about a show they’re not on anymore.” Schofield also denied the young man frequently came to his flat and that claims from Eamonn Holmes that he was taxied from the presenter's home are “utterly untrue”. ”He came to the flat once. To my recollection, he didn’t stay over. “He said he was passing. He came for a beer,” he said. 7. “The lie got too big” After Rajan questioned why the scandal has come out now, Schofield said: “It got too big. The lie got too big for both of us.” He added it was his “biggest, sorriest secret”. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur and anti-woke asset manager turned Republican presidential hopeful, has a plan for ending Russia's year-and-a-half war on Ukraine – sort of. The 38-year-old political newcomer will unveil what he describes as a plan to bring the brutal conflict to a close by halting American support for Kyiv and "negotiating a peace treaty with Russia that achieves a vital US security objective: ceasing Russia's growing military alliance with China". In remarks to be delivered on Friday in New Hampshire to the Belknap County GOP Lincoln Day, Mr Ramaswamy will say his plan is the mirror-image approach of the late US president Richard Nixon's effort to break up the Soviet Union's alliance with the People's Republic of China, citing what he describes as Russian President Vladimir Putin's status as "the new Mao". The Independent obtained a copy of his speech ahead of Friday's event. It cites a two-decade-old treaty between Russia and the PRC, as well as the "no limits" partnership unveiled by Mr Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping as evidence that a Sino-Russian alliance "presents the greatest military risk the US has ever faced" and accuses President Joe Biden of "pushing Russia into a closer military alliance with China which increases the risk of nuclear war" through his quarterbacking of US and Western support for Ukraine's defence. While Mr Ramaswamy's prepared remarks call his solution to the conflict a "peace treaty," what he lays out does not appear to meet the definition of the term. Peace treaties, by and large, represent final settlements to armed conflicts. Famous examples include the Treaty of Versailles, which ended the First World War, and the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco that formally brought an end to the Second World War. What he instead proposes is an analogue to United Nations-enforced armistice that has been in force on the Korean Peninsula since 1953. Under the terms of his plan, Kyiv would legitimise Russia's occupation of Ukraine's Donbas region by ceding it to Russia. The US and the West would end all sanctions on Russia, cease defence assistance to Ukraine, and Nato would prohibit Ukraine from ever becoming a member of the 31-nation defensive pact. The alliance would also roll back troop deployments that have taken place on its eastern frontier since 2016 – including closing all bases on Nato territory in Eastern Europe. In return, he proposes that Russia would exit its 2001 treaty with China, end the "no limits" partnership while ceasing any military cooperation with Beijing, rejoin the New START arms control treaty, withdraw any forces deployed in Latin America and remove "all nuclear weapons and delivery capabilities" from Belarus, any Ukrainian territory it has annexed, as well as the Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad, which is Russia's only ice-free port for its Baltic Fleet. His prepared remarks do not offer any evidence that Russia would be willing to cease cooperation with China or give up its military presence in Kaliningrad, which has housed a major naval base since the Soviet era. Nor does he provide any evidence to support his claim that Moscow would be willing to cut off decades of warm relations with Beijing in return for an end to Western sanctions, particularly since the Sino-Russian relationship has existed since the dawn of the 21st century. Despite multiple credible reports from US officials and other Western governments which say Kyiv's defence forces have dealt a major blow to Russia's conventional warfare capability, he plans to say that he believes Ukraine "will not defeat Russia militarily" without "extraordinary intervention" on the part of the United States, which he claims would lessen America's ability to respond to a Chinese attack on Taiwan. "Under my peace plan, Ukraine will still emerge with its sovereignty intact and Russia permanently diminished as a foe. Ukraine's best path to preserving its own security is to accept a US-negotiated agreement backstopped by Russian commitments to the US," he will say. The rollout of his plan for the Ukraine conflict represents the political neophyte's first foray into foreign policy waters since he launched his presidential campaign earlier this year. His opposition to continuing US defence assistance to Kyiv is in line with much of the pro-Trump wing of the GOP, which tends to view Russia far more favourably than the general US population. In a press release, the Democratic National Committee condemned the plan as "siding against our ally as Vladimir Putin wages an unjust and violent war in Ukraine" and derided Mr Ramaswamy as a "MAGA Republican presidential hopeful". "Vivek Ramaswamy is promising to end America's support of Ukraine – posing a threat to our allies on the ground and democracy itself," the DNC said. The DNC also pointed out that Mr Ramaswamy's position syncs up with much of the GOP presidential field, including the two highest-polling candidates: Mr Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Mr Trump, who has long professed an affinity for Mr Putin and has described him in positive terms despite his having ordered an unprovoked invasion of another country, praised the war crime-laden invasion as "savvy" and "genius" just days after Russian tanks crossed over the Ukrainian border. Mr DeSantis, who is a distant runner-up to Mr Trump in most polls of the GOP primary electorate, downplayed war – the largest land-based conflict on the European continent since 1945 – as a "territorial dispute" and a flight over "borderlands". But James Stavridis, a retired four-star US Navy admiral who served as Nato's Supreme Allied Commander, Europe from 2009 to 2013, was far more generous in his reaction to the plan. Mr Stavridis told The Independent in an email that he is "all for creative ideas in international diplomacy" and said he "would love to be able to say that there is a chance of this type of settlement occurring". But he added that he could not say there would be such a chance. For one, the former Nato commander said Mr Putin is "so deeply invested in the relationship with China" that there is "zero chance" he'd abandon his partnership with Mr Xi. He added that in his estimation, Russia would "never" agree to give up Kaliningrad as a base for nuclear-capable forces, and said there is also no chance that Kyiv would agree to cede approximately 20 per cent of its territory to Moscow. "Nor do I think that the west would be willing to completely walk away from Ukraine and deny providing them appropriate security guarantees, or even membership in NATO. The red lines for both sides are significant," he said. But Mr Stavridis did say he believes a "Korean-style armistice" is the most likely outcome of the 14-month-old conflict, with the caveat that "it's too soon to know where those boundary lines might be or where the trade-offs could occur". "Our job in the west is obvious, which is to give the Ukrainians everything they need in terms of material and training, so they can be at the best position when the negotiations ultimately begin," he said, adding later that "one thing [he knows] for sure" is that the Ukraine war presents "deeply complex issues with enormous, competing equities on all sides," with the chances of a simple settlement "within 24 hours" as Mr Trump suggested at a recent CNN town hall "approach[ing] negative infinity". While the ex-Navy admiral was measured in his evaluation of Mr Ramaswamy’s plan, a prominent GOP foreign policy veteran was far less generous when asked to opine on his proposal. Senator Lindsey Graham, a longtime member of the upper’s chamber’s foreign relations committee, told The Independent on Thursday that the anti-woke businessman’s plan amounted to “rewarding aggression” and called him “somebody who really doesn’t understand how the world works”. He added that rewarding Mr Putin for his aggression would result in China feeling empowered to take Taiwan. “You know, I’m glad people don’t think that way when it came to our freedom,” he said. “Go study history and give me an example where aggression was rewarded where you got less of it”. Senior Washington Correspondent Eric Garcia contributed reporting from Capitol Hill Read More Trump's welcome of Scott into 2024 race shows his calculus: The more GOP rivals, the better for him Zelensky salutes ‘powerful support’ from allies at Moldova summit – as he increases pressure over jets A six-year-old Ukrainian girl saved by adoption or a murderous adult imposter: Who really is Natalia Grace? The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary

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Two civilians were killed on Friday in shelling on Russia's Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine, while Kyiv was hit by Russian strikes overnight for...

Every now and then a story comes along which completely changes the way you think about space. For instance, did you know the universe is essentially evaporating right before our eyes? A new study has been released which focuses on the effect that radiation emitted from objects in the solar system can have a massive impact on quantum fields surrounding them. It follows on from Stephen Hawking’s theory that black holes lose mass and evaporate over time as an unusual form of radiation takes effect. Now, astrophysicists Michael Wondrak, Walter van Suijlekom, and Heino Falcke of Radboud University in the Netherlands have stated that this unusual form of radiation is apparent in other objects as well as black holes. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter In fact, they believe that “Hawking radiation” could be found in objects apparent everywhere in the universe – and it could mean that the universe is slowly evaporating before our very eyes. "We demonstrate that," Wondrak says in the study published in Physical Review Letters. "In addition to the well-known Hawking radiation, there is also a new form of radiation." "We show that far beyond a black hole the curvature of space-time plays a big role in creating radiation," van Suijlekom explains. "The particles are already separated there by the tidal forces of the gravitational field." Essentially, huge objects in the solar system can cause space-time to bend around them. When that happens, it causes enough change in quantum fields to generate particles which have similar properties to Hawking radiation. Falcke said: "That means that objects without an event horizon, such as the remnants of dead stars and other large objects in the universe, also have this sort of radiation. "And, after a very long period, that would lead to everything in the universe eventually evaporating, just like black holes. This changes not only our understanding of Hawking radiation but also our view of the universe and its future." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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