Brought

WASHINGTON — For Mary Fisher–mother, artist, philanthropist and HIV-positive woman–the moment is now.

She tries hard not to think about the future: her future, or the possibility that her children will face their future without her. When she feels the fear, it comes “in that reflective place you find yourself in at night, when you’re forced to find a quiet time,” she said.

“I allow my work and my children to fill my time, so I don’t have to think about those things on a daily or hourly basis,” she said. “I couldn’t get through the days if I did.”

Nor does Fisher dwell on her medical situation with her two young sons, who are now 6 and 4. Neither of them is infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS.

“The best thing I can do for them is be with them, look them straight in the eye, answer their questions as best I can and be here, be involved in their lives as best I can,” she said. “They know I have a disease. I don’t know if they’re relating it to what their dad had–and I don’t know if I want them to relate to it, because I’m not sick.

“I don’t want to instill my fears–if I have them–in my children,” she added.

It has been nearly two years since Fisher, 45, seared the public consciousness with her speech before the Republican National Convention.

Standing before her fellow Republicans, she spoke in calm, gentle tones–but delivered a personal story that shocked the hall into silence.

“I think she reaches people that activists like myself can never reach, which is people who respond to maternal warmth and not to yelling,” said playwright Larry Kramer, a close friend of Fisher’s who is a founding member of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power).

“That’s why she is as important as we are, maybe more so,” he said. “We’re a funny pair because she’s always saying to me: ‘Larry, I wish I had some of your anger.’ And I’m always saying to her: ‘Mary, I wish I had some of your compassion.’ I see her speeches on TV and say: ‘Mary, why don’t you get angrier?’ And she says: ‘Larry, I can’t.’ But I think she’s exceedingly effective being as she is, and I don’t want her to change a decibel.”

Fisher challenged the Republican Party to confront the AIDS epidemic with candor and compassion and to make the issue its own.

Since then, she has traveled the nation, speaking in churches, schools, prisons–wherever there is an audience that can learn from her message: If it can happen to me, it can happen to you.

In many quarters, “people perceive AIDS as a depressing subject and don’t want to take personal responsibility,” Fisher said from the home she now rents in a Maryland suburb outside Washington, where she moved her family from Boca Raton, Fla., last summer.

“They try to make me an exception,” she said. “I am not unusual. I am unusual only because I am speaking out. . . . The point is, there are a lot of me’s out there, women with small children who are (HIV) positive, women who are devastated, women who are scared to talk about it. I know, because they come to me when I am traveling. It’s truly amazing.”

In some ways, Fisher is wrong–she is unusual in the framework of the AIDS epidemic: She is wealthy — the daughter of longtime GOP fund-raiser and Detroit real estate mogul Max Fisher — and she works for herself at home (she creates art using handmade paper) so she has no “workplace problem” with AIDS.

And she has enough money to keep her children sheltered, although she has not isolated them.

Moreover, she is a longtime Republican with impeccable political credentials and connections.

Fisher includes former Presidents Gerald R. Ford and George Bush and their families among her closest friends. She once worked in the Ford White House, and photographs of Ford and her two sons, Max and Zachary, adorn her living room.

But AIDS is the great leveler, so she is also right–in many ways, she is no exception at all.

Fisher was infected by her former husband, Brian Campbell, who reportedly was at one time an intravenous drug user. He has since died of AIDS. Women infected through heterosexual contact have become a rapidly growing population.

Fisher said it took a long time for her to come to grips with her infection–and to speak about it.

“The discovery that we are HIV-positive tends to divide our lives into ‘before’ and ‘after,’ ” Fisher wrote in a newly published collection of her speeches, “Sleep with the Angels,” subtitled, “a mother challenges AIDS.”

The book, she says, “is not just about AIDS, it’s about children. It’s about religion. It’s about how we as a people deal with each other, and it’s about my life, my relationships with others and the unconditional love that’s out there.”

Kramer, who is quick to criticize others involved in AIDS activities, has only praise and affection for Fisher.

“It’s impossible not to like Mary because she is so caring and loving and motherly and interested, and because she puts her arms around you and gives you wonderful hugs,” he said.

Fisher learned in July, 1991, that she was infected, but she said it took six months before she was ready to tell her story publicly.

After she did, and after she spoke to the GOP convention, Bush appointed her to the now-defunct National Commission on AIDS, replacing Earvin (Magic) Johnson, the HIV-positive retired Los Angeles Lakers star who quit over what he said was an unresponsive Administration.

Fisher also founded the Family AIDS Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising AIDS awareness nationwide.

The network, she says, plans to give “care-giver” awards this spring because “they are the people who take care of us. They are the people who do not leave this epidemic.” She also said she hopes that the organization can raise enough money for small AIDS research grants.

Currently, Fisher has no symptoms and takes no AIDS medication. “I feel really healthy, and am doing fine,” she said. “As far as I know, everything is good.”

Fisher said she intends to keep doing everything she is doing for as long as she can, speaking quietly and forcefully about the epidemic to whoever will listen.

“If we can create a dialogue and keep it going, I believe it’s the only way we can make a difference,” she said.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, held in Israeli prisons without charge since December 2024, is being tortured and on the verge of death, according to his lawyer who found him badly beaten on July 2nd.

WASHINGTON — As Bill Clinton struggles with his draft history and President Bush his tax promises, they might look back wistfully at something that happened 40 years ago last week. Richard M. Nixon, in much worse trouble, talked his way out with a single TV appearance that became famous as the “Checkers” speech.

On Sept. 23, 1952, the newly minted vice presidential candidate of the Republican Party faced allegations that threatened to force him off the ballot and end his political career–the disclosure of an $18,000 fund set up for him by rich businessmen.

Nixon, a first-term senator from California, dealt with the crisis dramatically, gambling everything that the public could be won over to his side with a mixture of pathos and candor in a single speech.

He denied any impropriety in using the private fund. But that part is hardly remembered.

“One other thing I probably should tell you, because if I don’t, they will probably be saying this about me, too,” Nixon told a television audience of 60 million. “We did get something, a gift, after the nomination.”

He explained it was a black-and-white cocker spaniel that 6-year-old Tricia Nixon had named Checkers. “I just want to say this, right now,” said Nixon, in a fight to stay on the ticket with Dwight D. Eisenhower, “regardless of what they say about it, we are going to keep it.”

The “Checkers” speech also included Nixon’s famous reference to wife Pat’s “Republican cloth coat” to point out that she didn’t wear mink. He ended it with a defiant vow not to quit. He urged listeners to tell the Republican National Committee “whether you think I should stay on or whether I should get off.”

The outpouring of sympathetic support cemented his spot on the ticket.

The fund had been set up by Dana Smith, a Los Angeles lawyer who had been finance chairman for Nixon’s successful 1950 race for the Senate. Smith intended it to pay for Nixon’s political travel, printing and mailing of speeches and clerical help, which would not be reimbursed by the Senate.

Once the existence of “the millionaire’s club” exploded in headlines, it ballooned and overshadowed everything else in the 1952 campaign. Eisenhower’s advisers urged the general to dump Nixon and find himself a new running mate.

Nixon got scant comfort from Eisenhower, who told him: “I have come to the conclusion that you are the one who has to decide what to do,” Nixon recalled, in his book “Six Crises.” “I think you ought to go on a nationwide television program and tell them everything there is to tell, everything you can remember since the day you entered public life. Tell them about any money you have received.”

To others, Eisenhower insisted that Nixon prove himself “clean as a hound’s tooth.”

The GOP and the Senatorial Congressional Campaign Committee pledged the $75,000 to buy a half-hour in prime time for Nixon’s speech, which was broadcast from the 750-seat El Capitan Theater in Los Angeles–the same hall where the “Colgate Comedy Hour” and “This Is Your Life” originated.

An hour before he left for the theater, came a call from Thomas E. Dewey, a two-time losing candidate for president and then a member of Eisenhower’s inner circle. He insisted that Nixon end his broadcast with his resignation–and even resignation from the Senate.

“If they want to find out they’d better listen to the broadcast,” Nixon shouted at Dewey. “and tell them I know something about politics too.”

Nixon went on the air in the empty theater. “Not one cent of the $18,000 or any other money of that type ever went to my personal use,” he said. “Every penny of it was used to pay for political expenses that I did not think should be charged to the taxpayers of the United States.”

He listed his assets and his debts, in detail, then said of his wife, “Pat doesn’t have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable cloth coat. And I always tell her that she’d look good in anything.”

The next day, Nixon flew to Wheeling, W.Va., to meet with Eisenhower. Just as he was about to leave the plane, Eisenhower came up the steps.

“You didn’t have to come down here to meet me,” said Nixon.

“You’re my boy,” said the general. And Nixon wept.

This season, Toney finished second in the domestic scoring charts with 32 goals in 32 games – he evens boasts more assists and a better shot conversion rate than Bayern Munich forward Kane.

Just what those goals are worth outside Europe’s top five leagues is yet to be seen, but on numbers alone his record stands up to scrutiny against any English striker around.

Given he is also one of only three centre-forwards selected by Tuchel, with Ollie Watkins also in the squad, it does not feel like a position that is overmanned given that 26 squad places were up for grabs.

Previous Three Lions squads at major tournaments have at times included four or five personnel for the exact same position.

The argument against his inclusion would ask why England need another forward aside from Kane and Watkins, given modern-day formational switches and a dearth of top-quality options for that position?

Detractors would also argue Toney’s place should be used to accomodate another of those multi-talented number 10s who have been left behind.

However, former Chelsea and Paris St-Germain boss Tuchel could make a viable case for leaving behind Palmer and Foden, who have not hit previous heights in 2025-26.

Instead he has gone for a player brimming with confidence and one that is accustomed to dealing with the intense temperatures that England will encounter this summer at the tournament in the US, Mexico and Canada.

“We could see that he still collects the numbers. I think he has very special skills that could help us, the situations, scenarios when we are chasing a result,” added Tuchel.

“I think he can be a very valuable addition to Harry Kane, he can be present in the box when we are pushing for a goal.

“He can take attention off other strikers, he has a natural presence within the box, he is a natural finisher, he can help us with set-pieces – he is very strong in there. Very good in using his body and not to forget, he is a world class penalty taker. He ticks some boxes that we wanted to be ticked.”

The Three Lions, who reached the semi-finals in Russia in 2018 and the quarter-finals in Qatar four years ago, face Croatia in their opening Group L fixture on Wednesday, 17 June (21:00 BST).

This rule applies on another airline as well – and could catch some people out

Jet2 customers are being reminded of a rule the airline has that does not allow passengers to bring on board an item that is commonly available in airports. The popular airline reiterated its blanket ban for customers this week – and there are no exceptions.

Holidaymakers are advised not to bring the item with them beyond the gate leading to the aircraft. Most airlines have their own rules, which vary depending on which one you fly with, though many share the same for health and safety reasons.

Jet2 has a strict rule in place about bringing hot drinks on board, including teas, coffees and hot chocolates. The rule also applies to any hot food – even if it was purchased from a shop, cafe or restaurant in the airport terminal.

Jet2 reiterated the rule online to a passenger who asked whether they could bring a drink with them. The airline said: “You are able to bring any snacks or soft drinks on board bought in the terminal (after security).” However, it added: “Hot drinks are not permitted to be brought on board.”

People who are due to board flights will need to finish their hot food or drinks before being allowed on board. This rule applies to other airlines as well, like Ryanair, but some are more relaxed, like easyJet.

What is the reason for this Jet2 rule?

On its website, Jet2 states: “You can’t bring hot food or hot drinks onboard our planes for safety reasons.” The Jet2 ban applies only to drinks customers bring on board.

Usually, passengers can purchase a variety of hot foods, as well as teas, coffees, and hot chocolates, on board Jet2 flights. Customers must remember the payment rule that applies to all flights.

Elsewhere, certain airlines, like easyJet, will allow hot drinks bought in the airport on board. This is provided the cup has a secure lid.

In other Jet2 news, the airline announced two new routes to a ‘stunning’ island with ‘sandy beaches‘, ‘aquamarine waters’, ‘cobbled streets’ and ‘rolling hills’. The new routes follow Jet2’s claims of continued customer demand and independent travel agents booking holidays for the short hop to the island.

Jet2 has confirmed significant expansion to its Jersey programme for summer 2027, by putting two new routes and additional capacity on sale, as well as extending the season. The airline has introduced flights and holidays from Birmingham and Bristol for Summer 2027.

In addition to the new routes, extra capacity to Jersey has been added from Manchester, and the summer season to the destination has been extended. It means Jet2 will operate to Jersey right through to the end of October.