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Stormy Daniels has urged Melania Trump to leave her husband because he is now a convicted criminal.

Trump became the first former US president to be criminally convicted after he was found unanimously guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up “hush money” payments to porn star Ms Daniels on Thursday.

Ms Daniels, with whom Trump allegedly cheated on his wife, has now urged the former first lady to leave him.

“I don’t know what their agreement may or may not be, but Melania needs to leave him,” she said in an interview with The Daily Mirror. “Not because of what he did with me or other women but because he is a convicted felon.

“It’s been proven he is abusive; he was found liable for sexual assault and tax fraud and is now a criminal. He’s neither Teflon Don nor Teflon Con anymore.”

Trump has maintained he is innocent and said he will appeal the verdict.

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Trump slams ‘rigged’ trial and ‘devil’ judge

Asked how his wife was doing during an interview on Fox & Friends, Trump said: “She’s fine, but I think it’s very hard for her. I mean, she’s fine. But it’s, you know, she has to read all this crap.”

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Asked why she believed Ms Trump – and his eldest daughter Ivanka – did not attend the trial, Ms Daniels told the Mirror it was for family reasons.

‘He didn’t want to perjure himself’

“I would not want to expose my children to that dangerous environment,” she said. “And Melanie [Melania] and Ivanka are both parents, they’re mothers who have younger children, and that would be my reason.

“You know, if it was the other way around, even if I wanted to support my spouse or my family member, I would choose the safety and privacy of my child over attending court.”

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Ms Daniels also told the Mirror she believed Trump avoided taking to the stand because he feared it would have created a Monica Lewinsky moment.

She said: “To my mind, it’s very simple why he didn’t give evidence. He didn’t want to perjure himself. He would have committed perjury. The prosecution would have straight out asked him if Ms Daniels was lying. Did you have a sexual relationship with that woman?

“He couldn’t tell the truth, and he could not lie either, so he never gave evidence.”

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She added: “What happened between me and him wasn’t about the sex, it wasn’t about the hush money, it wasn’t about the NDA, it wasn’t about where he put his little thing. It wasn’t about any of that.

“It was about his falsifying of business documents. It wasn’t a hush-money trial. It wasn’t the Stormy Daniels trial. I was just the sensationalism angle.”

Trump is due to be sentenced on 11 July, days before the Republican Party is expected to confirm him as its nominee for the presidential election against Joe Biden in November.

The conviction does not stop Trump from running for president again.

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Trump calls for reopening of Alcatraz to house ‘most ruthless and violent offenders’

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Trump calls for reopening of Alcatraz to house 'most ruthless and violent offenders'

US President Donald Trump has called for the reopening of notorious prison Alcatraz.

In a post on his social media site Truth Social, Mr Trump said America had been “plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat criminal offenders”.

He added that when the United States was “a more serious nation” it “did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals”.

“That is why, today, I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt Alcatraz, to house America’s most ruthless and violent offenders,” he wrote.

Mr Trump said the reopening of the San Francisco prison would “serve as a symbol of law, order, and justice”.

The US president’s latest policy announcement comes after he fired national security adviser Mike Waltz last week in the first major change to his administration.

US President Donald Trump. Pic: AP
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US President Donald Trump speaking to reporters on Sunday. Pic: AP

Alcatraz was infamously inescapable and in the 29 years it was open, 36 men attempted 14 separate escapes, according to the FBI.

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Nearly all of them were caught or did not survive the attempt at escaping.

The prison housed some of America’s most notorious criminals, including Al Capone and George Kelly.

It has also been the subject of a number of films, including The Rock, starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage.

Alcatraz Island. File pic: AP
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Alcatraz Island. File pic: AP

Alcatraz Island, which is surrounded by strong ocean currents and cold Pacific waters, is now a major tourist site, operated by the National Park Service.

The prison’s closure in 1963 was attributed to crumbling infrastructure and high repair costs.

A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons said it would “comply with all presidential orders”.

The Bureau of Prisons currently has 16 high-security prisons, including its maximum-security facility in Florence, Colorado, and a facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, which is home to the federal death chamber.

The United States’ federal law enforcement agency has been the subject of increased scrutiny in recent years after Jeffrey Epstein‘s suicide at a federal jail in New York City in 2019.

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Woman missing for more than 60 years found ‘alive and well’

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Woman missing for more than 60 years found 'alive and well'

A woman in the US who has been missing since 1962 has been found “alive and well”, authorities have said.

Audrey Backeberg left her home in Reedsburg, Wisconsin, in July that year when she was 20 years old, Sauk County Sheriff’s Office said.

Investigators pursued numerous leads over the years but the case eventually went cold.

However, during a review of cold cases earlier this year, a detective reassessed all the case files and evidence, and re-interviewed several witnesses – and found Ms Backeberg.

The 82-year-old was “alive and well” – living outside of the state of Wisconsin, the sheriff’s office said.

Ms Backeberg was married and had two children when she disappeared on 7 July 1962, according to the Wisconsin Missing Persons Advocacy organisation.

She left her home to pick up her salary but never returned, causing her husband to ask family members where she was.

Shortly afterwards their 14-year-old babysitter claimed she and Ms Backeberg had hitchhiked to Wisconsin’s capital city Madison and then caught a bus to Indianapolis, Indiana.

The teenager said when she arrived she became nervous and wanted to go home, while Ms Backeberg refused to return and was last seen walking near a bus stop.

Ms Backeberg’s marriage was troubled and there were allegations of abuse, the Wisconsin Missing Persons Advocacy organisation said, with a criminal complaint having been filed days before she went missing.

Her relatives insisted she would never abandon her children, the organisation added, and her husband passed a polygraph test and maintained his innocence.

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‘We talked for 45 minutes’ – detective

Detective Isaac Hanson, who found Ms Backeberg, said her sister’s Ancestry.com account was vital in helping him locate her address.

“That was pretty key in locating death records, census reports, all kinds of data,” he told local news station WISN.

“So I called the local sheriff’s department, said, ‘Hey, there’s this lady living at this address. Do you guys have somebody, you can just go pop in?’

“Ten minutes later, she called me, and we talked for 45 minutes.”

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‘She sounded happy’

Mr Hanson said Ms Backeberg may have left home due to marital issues, but it was unclear why she had stayed away for so long.

He said he had promised to keep their conversation private.

“I think she just was removed and, you know, moved on from things and kind of did her own thing and led her life,” he said.

“She sounded happy. Confident in her decision. No regrets.”

Sauk County Sheriff’s Office said Ms Backeberg made the choice to leave and her disappearance “was not the result of any criminal activity or foul play”.

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Trump posts AI image of himself as pope on Truth Social

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Trump posts AI image of himself as pope on Truth Social

Donald Trump has posted an AI-generated image of himself dressed in papal regalia on his Truth Social platform – just 11 days after the death of Pope Francis.

Uploaded onto his account early on Saturday morning, it shows the US president with a large gold cross on a chain around his neck.

From there, it was published, without comment or explanation, on the White House X and Instagram accounts and, though it drew fierce criticism, it was liked more than 100,000 times.

It comes just a few days after the world leader joked that he’d like to be the pontiff.

Last week, he was asked by reporters on the White House lawn who he would like to succeed Francis and he replied: “I’d like to be Pope. That would be my number one choice.”

He went on to say that he did not have a preference, but there was a cardinal in New York who was “very good”.

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‘I’d like to be pope’

Mr Trump was quickly accused of mocking Pope Francis’s death, but, by noon, UK time, the post had been liked more than 58,000 times on Instagram.

User comments, however, were mostly negative, with one saying that the image “isn’t funny. It’s not satire. And it’s not harmless”.

Another simply called it “disgusting”, while other reactions included “disturbing”, “disrespectful” and “offensive”.

On X, where the picture was liked more than 78,000 times, a user commented that Mr Trump was “making a mockery of the pious”, while another judged it “not a wise decision”.

The conclave to select a new pontiff will begin on 7 May after the death of Francis, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Argentinian, who became pope in 2013, died on Easter Monday at the age of 88 due to a stroke and heart failure.

Last weekend, the president was criticised for wearing a non-traditional blue suit for Francis’s Vatican funeral and chewing gum during the ceremony.

However, his meeting in St Peter’s Basilica with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the outdoor mass got under way was dubbed “Pope Francis’s miracle” by members of the clergy.

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, right, and President Donald Trump, talk as they attend the funeral of Pope Francis in Vatican, Saturday, April 26, 2025.(Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
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Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy met in St Peter’s Basilica. Pic: Ukrainian Presidential Press Office

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Mr Trump’s own religious views have long been a matter of speculation.

He was raised as a Presbyterian and publicly identified with it for most of his adult life, before, in October 2020, he renounced it and said he now considered himself a non-denominational Christian.

Many have questioned the depth of his faith, but that hasn’t stopped him appealing to conservative Christians and the Christian right, particularly evangelicals, some of whom have helped him get elected twice.

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Earlier this year, Mr Trump shared a bizarre AI-generated video on his Truth Social platform showcasing what appeared to be a vision of Gaza under his proposed plan.

The footage showed the area transformed into a Middle Eastern paradise with exotic beaches, Dubai-style skyscrapers, luxury yachts and people partying – and featured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Elon Musk.

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