Melania Trump says she loves Trump, ignores cheating rumors

WASHINGTON — Melania Trump says she loves President Donald Trump and has "much more important things to think about" than allegations he cheated on her with a porn star, a Playboy Playmate or anyone else.

Mrs. Trump, who was interviewed by ABC while touring Africa last week, said people are just spreading rumors about her marriage.

"I know people like to speculate and media like to speculate about our marriage and circulate the gossip," she said. "But I understand the gossip sells newspapers, magazines ... and, unfortunately, we live in this kind of world today."

She insisted allegations of her husband's infidelities are not a concern.

Trump, who during the 2016 presidential campaign was heard on an old "Access Hollywood" tape talking about groping and trying to have sex with women, has been accused of having multiple affairs. Porn star Stormy Daniels and ex-Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal have said they had sex with him years ago.


Trump has denied the trysts with Daniels and McDougal but has acknowledged reimbursing his lawyer for a $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels. Mrs. Trump has generally kept quiet on the subject.

Asked in the ABC interview if she loves her husband, Mrs. Trump said, "Yes, we are fine. Yes."

She played down a suggestion the repeated rumors of his philandering had put a strain on their marriage.

"It is not concern and focus of mine," she said. "I'm a mother and a first lady, and I have much more important things to think about and to do."

But when asked if the repeated rumors had hurt her, she paused. Then she reiterated the "media world is speculating."

"Yeah, it's not always pleasant, of course," she said. "But I know what is right and what is wrong and what is true and not true."

Portions of Mrs. Trump's interview aired Friday on "Good Morning America." ABC News aired more from the interview during an hourlong special broadcast Friday night, during which she explained why she wore a jacket that said "I really don't care, do u?" on a trip to the border to visit migrant children who had been separated from their parents.

She noted that she wore the jacket getting on and off the plane, but not during her visits with children, and said it was a message to "people and the left-wing media who are criticizing me."

Mrs. Trump said the jacket was a statement that the criticism will not stop her from doing "what I feel is right."

She said she purposely wore the jacket on the flight back to Washington after seeing "how the media was obsessed about it."

"It was kind of a message, yes," the first lady said.

In another portion of the interview, which aired earlier this week, Mrs. Trump says she could be "the most bullied person" in the world and women who make accusations of sexual assault need to "show the evidence."

Donald Trump, on the 2005 "Access Hollywood" tape that became public late in the 2016 campaign, says when he's attracted to beautiful women, "I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet." He said when you're a star, women let you.

"Grab them by the p----," Trump adds. "You can do anything."

Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty in August to campaign finance violations alleging he, Trump and the National Enquirer tabloid were involved in buying the silence of Daniels and McDougal after they alleged affairs with Trump.

___

AP Media Writer David Bauder in New York and Associated Press writer Darlene Superville in contributed to this report.

source: philstar.com

‘Selfie’ explores online addiction, embarrassment

LOS ANGELES — Narcissism, isolation, control freakery: the deep impact of the Internet and social networks on our modern lives is coming under the spotlight in a new American TV show and an upcoming movie this month.

TV show “Selfie,” which launched on ABC this week and the film “Men, Women and Children,” which hits the big screen later this month, both reflect the ravages wreaked by being constantly online.

The ABC network’s show depicts Eliza Dooley, who works in marketing but who is a social networking “superstar” due to her 263,000 “followers” on the Instagram photo sharing service.

She shares with them her every move, and posts pictures of every meal and herself in every state of undress. She measures people based on their “friends” or “followers” on the Internet.

But her life is upended when she finds herself a laughing stock online due to an unfortunate viral video.

“I’ve spent years laughing at stupid idiots on Instagram, and now the stupid idiot was me,” says Dooley, played by Karen Gillan of recent box office hit “Guardians of the Galaxy” fame.

To escape this online nightmare, she calls on marketing ace Henry, who tells her she has become pathetically dependent on “the instant gratification of unearned adoration of perfect strangers.”

“When Siri is the only one there for you, you realize being friended is not the same as having friends,” sums up Dooley’s plight.

The show has earned mixed reviews — the Hollywood Reporter said it “has potential despite cloying pilot” aired last Tuesday.

People ‘more bold’ online 


But it does broach some of the real problems of our ultra-connected society: the isolation of online life, the difficulty in real-life communication it highlights, the ubiquity of mobile devices at mealtimes or in the bedroom.

“Men, women and Children,” by Jason Reitman — who directed “Juno” (2007) and “Up in the Air” (2009) — depicts a well-known urban scene: a street packed with people, all with their heads down locked into their smartphone screens.

The movie, which comes out on October 17 in the United States, tells the story of a group of high school friends. One celebrity-seeking teenager finds herself exploited when naked photos of her leak online.

An anxious mother (Jennifer Garner) seeks to protect her daughter from sexual predators by going through every single of her texts, emails or Facebook posts. But it is an uphill task.

Technology is increasingly pervasive in the plots of any number of TV shows and films: think texting in “House of Cards,” geolocalization in “Earth to Echo” and recent thriller “November Man.”

Tom Nunan, a professor at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, cites notably 1998′s “You’ve Got Mail” by Nora Ephron as prescient about the impact of email on our love lives.

“‘You’ve got Mail’ has only grown in affection and respect over the years, as people look back… at the time, people didn’t think it came at the level of ‘When Harry met Sally,’ but that movie has aged very well,” he said.

More recently, Netflix drama “House of Cards,” about a lawmaker climbing the political ladder by any means available, uses texting to “accelerate the plot very quickly,” said Nunan.

Smartphones we carry everywhere have become “our courage devices,” said the academic, adding that they allow people to “say things we would not have the courage to say face-to-face.”

“We’re much more bold,” he added.

Other aspects of online behavior — cyber-bullying, for example, or so-called “revenge porn” — are ripe areas for filmmakers. One only has to think of the recent leaking of naked celebrity photos.

The film is probably already being made somewhere, or at least planned.

The depiction of our increasingly online life seems likely only to grow in the coming months and years, on the small and big screen.

source: interaksyon.com

White House weighs in on Jimmy Kimmel China controversy

WASHINGTON | The White House has weighed in on a petition calling for the government to crack down on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” a television talk show that sparked a furor in China in October with a child’s joke about killing Chinese people to avoid paying down U.S. debt to the country.

More than 105,000 people signed on to a White House petition calling for an apology after the show, broadcast on ABC, included a segment where Kimmel asked a group of children how the United States should pay back the $1.3 trillion it owes to China, the world’s second-largest economy.

A 6-year-old said, “Kill everyone in China.” Kimmel replied: “That’s an interesting idea.”

Afterwards, Chinese-American groups protested outside the California headquarters of ABC, which is owned by Walt Disney Co, and the Chinese Foreign Ministry complained. ABC and Kimmel apologized for the segment.

The White House, which accepts petitions and responds to the most popular ones, noted that ABC and Kimmel have “already apologized independently” and said that the comments “do not reflect mainstream views of China in the United States.”

“As the president has stated publicly, the United States welcomes the continuing peaceful rise of China,” the White House said in its official response to the petition. (Link to petition: r.reuters.com/waw85v)

However, the White House also noted that the U.S. Constitution protects free speech and that the federal government cannot force ABC to “cut the show” as the petition had requested.

“It may be upsetting when people say things we might personally disagree with, but the principle of protected free speech is an important part of who we are as a nation,” the White House said.

source: interaksyon.com