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Sean “Diddy” Combs will remain in jail while he makes a third bid for bail in his sex trafficking case, a federal appeals court judge has ruled.

Circuit Judge William J Nardini denied the rapper’s immediate release from jail while a three-judge panel considers his bail request.

Lawyers for the 54-year-old, also known as Puff Daddy and P Diddy, appealed to the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals on 30 September after two judges rejected his release.

Combs pleaded not guilty on 17 September to a three-count indictment charging him with using his business empire, including record label Bad Boy Entertainment, to transport male and female sex workers across state lines to take part in recorded sexual performances called “freak offs”.

Yesterday, in his third court appearance since his arrest in September, Combs was told he will face trial on 5 May.

The hip-hop mogul has been jailed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since his arrest.

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He faces a sentence of up to life in prison and a minimum of 15 years if convicted of the three counts: racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.

Three weeks ago, a judge at a bail hearing rejected the defence’s $50m (£38m) bail proposal for the singer to be placed under house arrest in his mansion in Florida – which would have involved GPS monitoring and strict limits on visitors.

Prosecutors had presented “clear and convincing evidence” Combs was a danger to the community, Judge Andrew L Carter Jr said.

He said “no condition or set of conditions” could prevent Combs from obstructing the investigation or threatening or harming witnesses.

The judge has since recused himself from the case, based on his past associations with lawyers in the case, according to Sky’s US partner, NBC News.

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Combs’ lawyers argued the judge had “endorsed the government’s exaggerated rhetoric” and ordered Combs detained for “purely speculative reasons”.

“Indeed, hardly a risk of flight, he is a 54-year-old father of seven, a US citizen, an extraordinarily successful artist, businessman and philanthropist, and one of the most recognisable people on earth,” the lawyers wrote in their appeal

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Aimee Lou Wood hits out at ‘mean and unfunny’ SNL joke

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Aimee Lou Wood hits out at 'mean and unfunny' SNL joke

The White Lotus star Aimee Lou Wood has called a sketch making fun of her teeth “mean and unfunny”.

The 31-year-old British actress posted an Instagram story about the joke on US TV show Saturday Night Live (SNL), in which comedian Sarah Sherman used exaggerated prosthetic teeth to do an impression of her.

Production shot of actress Aimee Lou Wood from S3 of The White Lotus Credit: HBO
From HBO media pack. Source: https://press.wbd.com/na/property/white-lotus/images
Image:
Pic: HBO

In the skit, titled The White Potus, Donald Trump and his family were reimagined as The White Lotus’s Ratliff family, dealing with the backlash to the US president’s recently introduced tariffs.

The third season of Mike White’s hit hotel drama has just concluded on Sky Atlantic.

While the other characters in the skit were shown in the guise of real-life political figures, Wood, who plays Chelsea in the show, was show in character talking about a monkey.

Wood, who shot to fame on Netflix’s Sex Education, said she was the only character in the piece that was “punched down on”.

She also said a part of the parody that joked about fluoride, following recent debates in the US as to if it should be removed from the tap water, was missing the point as she has “big gap teeth not bad teeth”.

Wood wrote: “Yes, take the piss for sure – that’s what the show is about – but there must be a cleverer, more nuanced, less cheap way?”

The Stockport-born star also flagged Sherman’s poor attempt at a Mancunian accent.

But Wood went on to say that she wasn’t “hating” on Sherman personally, just “on the concept”.

Production shot of actress Aimee Lou Wood from S3 of The White Lotus Credit: HBO
From HBO media pack. Source: https://press.wbd.com/na/property/white-lotus/images
Image:
Pic: HBO

Wood also flagged an online comment that said: “It was a sharp and funny skit until it suddenly took a screeching turn into 1970s misogyny,” adding, “This sums up my view”.

After sharing her opinions, Wood said she had received “thousands of messages in agreement” and so was “glad I said something”.

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The White Lotus is set in ‘actual paradise’

Wood shared comments of support she had received.

One, from an unnamed fan, said she too had “a big gap” in her teeth, as well as “an overbite” and that while she had been previously considering “spending thousands on fixing it,” seeing Wood look “gorgeous” on The White Lotus had made her reconsider.

Wood said SNL has since apologised to her.

Wood previously said, during an appearance on The Jonathan Ross Show, that the positive reception to her performance was “a real full-circle moment after being bullied for my teeth forever”.

NBC, which airs SNL, has been contacted for comment.

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Upstairs, Downstairs actress Jean Marsh dies

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Upstairs, Downstairs actress Jean Marsh dies

Jean Marsh, star of Upstairs, Downstairs, has died aged 90, a friend has confirmed.

Marsh’s friend, director Sir Michael Lindsay-Hogg, said in a statement to the PA news agency that the actress “died peacefully in bed looked after by one of her very loving carers”.

“You could say we were very close for 60 years,” he added. “She was as wise and funny as anyone I ever met, as well as being very pretty and kind, and talented as both an actress and writer.

“An instinctively empathetic person who was loved by everyone who met her. We spoke on the phone almost every day for the past 40 years.”

Robert Blake and Jean Marsh with their Emmy Awards in 1975. Pic: AP
Image:
Robert Blake and Jean Marsh with their Emmy Awards in 1975. Pic: AP

Marsh was best known for her role as Rose in Upstairs, Downstairs, for which she won an Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a limited series in 1976.

She co-created the series – about life in Edwardian England – with Dame Eileen Atkins.

Jean Marsh in 1975. Pic: PA
Image:
Jean Marsh in 1975. Pic: PA

Born on 1 July 1934 in Stoke Newington, north London, Jean Lyndsey Torren Marsh’s mother worked in a bar and as a theatre dresser, while her father was a handyman and printer’s assistant.

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Marsh took dance and mime classes as therapy for an illness at a young age, and began acting on stage with a stint at Huddersfield Rep in the 1950s.

She then transferred to London, and at just 12 years old made her West End debut in The Land Of The Christmas Stockings at The Duke of York’s Theatre.

Gordon Jackson, as butler Hudson and Jean Marsh, as parlour maid Rose Buck. Pic: PA
Image:
Gordon Jackson, as butler Hudson and Jean Marsh, as parlour maid Rose Buck. Pic: PA

A success in the US, Marsh appeared in iconic shows such as The Twilight Zone, Danger Man, Hawaii Five-O and Murder, She Wrote.

She also made appearances in classic British shows, including Doctor Who – where she played William Hartnell’s short-lived companion Sara Kingdom – and Detective.

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Erin Brockovich: ‘My chiropractor saw mud on my stiletto – I said, I’ve been collecting dead frogs’

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Erin Brockovich: 'My chiropractor saw mud on my stiletto - I said, I've been collecting dead frogs'

Erin Brockovich says a chance conversation about a muddy stiletto with her chiropractor led to the making of the award-winning film about her life.

The climate activist, who was played by Julia Roberts in the movie, told Sky News: “My girlfriend, who was a chiropractor, was giving me a chiropractic adjustment and asked me why I had mud on my stilettos.

“I said, ‘Oh, I’ve been collecting dead frogs’. She goes, ‘What is wrong with you?’ So, I started telling her what I was doing.”

Then just a junior paralegal, Brockovich was in fact pulling together evidence that would see her emerge victorious from one of the largest cases of water contamination in US history in Hinkley, California.

Her hard work would see her win a record settlement from Pacific Gas & Electric Company – $333m (£254m) – but that was all still to come.

Little did Brockovich know, but her tale of a muddy stiletto would get back to actor Danny DeVito and his Jersey Films producing partner Michael Schamburg, and through them to the film’s director Steven Soderbergh.

Brockovich says Soderbergh was “wowed” by what he heard.

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She says he realised her image “was something that Hollywood might be drawn to that I was never thinking of – the short skirt, the attitude, the big bust, the stilettos, the backcombed hair. Somehow, it came together.”

‘I was always going to be misunderstood’

Released in 2000, the powerful story of one woman’s fight for justice made Brockovich a household name, and the film won actress Julia Roberts an Oscar.

Now, 25 years on, Brockovich says she believes her legal victory was helped in part by an unlikely ally – her learning difficulty.

Julia Roberts and Russell Crowe pictured after winning Oscars for best actor and actress during the Oscars in 2001. Pic: AP/Richard Drew
Image:
Julia Roberts and Russell Crowe win best actress and actor at
the 2001 Oscars. Pic: AP/Richard Drew

Brockovich says: “Had I not been dyslexic, I might have missed Hinkley.”

Recently named a global ambassador for charity Made By Dyslexia, she’s been aware of her learning differences since childhood and still struggles today.

She says “moments of low self-esteem” still “creep back in”, and she long ago accepted “I was always going to be misunderstood”.

But for Brockovich, recognising her dyslexic strengths while working in Hinkley proved a pivotal moment: “My observations are wickedly keen. I feel like a human radar some days… Things you might not see as a pattern, I recognise. There are things that intuitively, I absolutely know.

“It will take me some time in my visual patterns of what I’m seeing, how to organise that. And it was in Hinkley that that moment happened for me because it was so omnipresent [and] in my face. Everything that should have been normal was not.”

‘A huge perfect storm’

Brockovich paints a bleak picture of what she saw in the small town: “The trees were secreting poison, the cows were covered in tumours, the chickens had wry neck [a neurological condition that causes the head to tilt abnormally], the people were sick and unbeknown to them, I knew they were all having the exact same health patterns. To the green water, to the two-headed frog, all of that was just I was like on fire, like electricity going, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s going on out here?'”

She describes it as “a huge, perfect storm that came together for me in Hinkley”.

But a side effect of the movie – overnight global fame – wasn’t always easy to deal with.

Pic. Made By Dyslexia
Image:
Pic. Made By Dyslexia

Brockovich calls it “scary,” admitting, “when the film first came out the night of the premiere, I was literally shaking so bad, I was so overwhelmed, that Universal Studios said, ‘If we can’t get you to calm down, I think we need to take you home’. It was a lot”.

Brockovich says she kept grounded by staying focused on her work, her family and her three children.

With Hollywood not always renowned for its faithful adherence to fact, Brockovich says the film didn’t whitewash the facts.

“I think they really did a good job at pointing out our environmental issues. Hollywood can do that, they can tell a good story. And I’m glad it was not about fluff and glamour. I’m glad it was about a subject that oftentimes we don’t want to talk about. Water pollution, environmental damage. People being poisoned.”

‘Defend ourselves against environmental assaults’

While environmental awareness is now part of the daily conversation in a way it wasn’t a quarter of a century ago, the battle to protect the climate is far from over.

Just last month, Donald Trump laid out plans to slash over 30 climate and environmental regulations as part of an ongoing effort to boost US industries from coal to manufacturing and ramp up oil and minerals production.

In response, Brockovich says, “We’re not going to stop it, but we can defend against these environmental assaults.

“We can do better with infrastructure. We can do better on a lot of policy-making. I think there’s a moment here. We have to do that because the old coming into the new isn’t working.

“I’ve recognised the patterns for 30-plus years, we just keep doing the same thing over and over and over and over again, expecting a different result.

“For me, sometimes it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, just get your ego out of the way’. We have to accept that this might be something greater than us, but we can certainly defend ourselves and protect ourselves and prepare ourselves better so we can get through that storm.”

You can listen to Brockovich speaking about her dyslexia with Made By Dyslexia founder Kate Griggs on the first episode of the new season of the podcast Lessons In Dyslexic Thinking, wherever you get your podcasts.

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