“Grey’s Anatomy” and “One Tree Hill” actor Sophia Bush reveals in her new memoir, “And I Will Tell You Mine: Notes From a Life in Progress,” that she married former professional soccer player Ashlyn Harris in summer 2025.
The private ceremony took place in upstate New York with Harris’ children, Sloane and Ocean, attending, Bush and Harris revealed in a Vogue exclusive published Wednesday. The couple said they later made the rounds, visiting friends and family to divulge their secret nuptials.
Sophia Bush, in a 2025 episode of “Grey’s Anatomy,” told Vogue she married Ashlyn Harris in a private ceremony with Harris’ children in attendance.
(Anne Marie Fox / Disney)
“We got to have personal experiences with everyone we love, and once we got through all of those, how do we put it out? Because I don’t want to keep sitting on panels or in interviews and being like, ‘My partner,’” Bush told Vogue over Zoom, then turning to Harris. “You’re not my partner, you know? You’re my wife. And it feels so amazing to say that.”
After Harris described her kids running around, picking flowers and generally having fun, stepmom Bush recalled the family roasting marshmallows on their wedding night: “It was so precious, and zero pressure. I will never forget it.”
The newlyweds also explained that, though they value privacy, optics are important for at least one very important reason.
“We understand how sacred and how pure our love is. But the visibility piece matters,” Harris said, “because there are still kids hiding who don’t feel seen, and if we make room and space for one person, that’s worth maybe costing us a little bit of peace in the public eye.”
Summer mornings in the Hill Tracts region of Bangladesh are a respite from the dissonance of honking cars and construction of the capital city of Dhaka. It was a welcome change to hear chickens and the sound of … wait, was that Julie Andrews’ voice echoing over the hills?
I was visiting my home country when I heard a group of schoolchildren playing ektaras, a traditional string instrument, and singing the “Do-Re-Mi” song for their morning assembly.
I used my phone to show them a picture of Andrews. “Do you know her?” They immediately leaped in excitement. They didn’t know the composer Richard Rodgers or lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II. But they knew Andrews — even though 60 years have passed since “The Sound of Music” and these children live in a remote Bangladeshi village. The recognition is evidence of something extraordinary.
Andrews is turning 91 on Thursday, and there are calls online to bubble wrap her, just in case. She is indeed a global treasure, and she has been earning plaudits and admirers for eight decades.
Andrews trained in the Italian bel canto tradition and from a young age sang challenging coloratura arias with precision, clarity and range. The bright, happy tone, perhaps a subconscious decision rather than anatomical alone, provided her respite from the doodlebug bombs that fell during her childhood in England in World War II. British critics had dubbed her as the “youngest prima donna,” a title usually reserved for opera greats, and it wasn’t undeserved. At just 12, she routinely floated high Fs above the treble staff during live performances.
Yet before opera could claim her, Broadway stepped in. From “The Boy Friend” to “My Fair Lady” and then “Camelot,” she won the hearts of theater goers and creators alike. Lyricist Alan Lerner described her as “an amazingly quick study in music … who meets any challenge with an unabated eyelid that makes you wonder how Britain ever lost the empire.”
Her voice then was so precise that the late maestro André Previn, who led the London Symphony Orchestra, proclaimed: “No one’s diction in any field of singing can come close. … You understand every syllable from the second balcony — I don’t understand how you do that.”
It’s inaccurate to romanticize her legacy in 2026 as simply nostalgic. That would overlook the depth and progressive nature of her characters. She was essentially the first female superhero on the big screen, as Mary Poppins — who could fly and create alternate realities with the snap of her heels, but whose more stunning superpower at the height of the Cold War was to charmingly portray capitalism as dangerous.
In “Victor/Victoria,” she navigated a gender-bending performance that challenged societal norms, playing a woman who impersonates a man impersonating a woman when it was taboo to speak about any layer of that. Her most overlooked and perhaps her best dramatic role was in “Duet for One,” a 1986 film about a musician who suffers from multiple sclerosis. Tragically this became a moment of life imitating art, foreshadowing her own destiny to lose her instrument after throat surgery in 1997.
Rather than retreat, Andrews adjusted and leaned into voice acting with characters like the dominant Queen Lillian in “Shrek” films, Gru’s hilariously villainous mother in “Despicable Me” and the mysterious Lady Whistledown in “Bridgerton,” for which she won an Emmy, twice.
In real life, the flying super governess fought to adopt two babies from Vietnam just after the fall of Saigon, helping to raise awareness of the need for adoptive parents. She then co-founded the Operation USA disaster relief charity and opened the Japanese wing for the United Nations Development Fund for Women.
Whether it was to support UNICEF after the devastating Bhola cyclone hit present-day Bangladesh in 1970 or jetting to Jordan and Senegal to support women’s and children’s activities, she was a quiet champion for the underserved. In her most famous role, in “The Sound of Music,” she was a savior for children being displaced by war.
Andrews is mostly out of the public eye, but her singing is eternal and accessible. YouTube is home to a trove of Andrews performances, including “This Is My Beloved” from “Kismet,” full-voiced “When You Wish Upon a Star,” from pianissimos to fortes, high B-flats and all — her classical skill shines through. These recordings remind us that beyond just the formulaic legato phrasing that singers from the Italian tradition follow, and the clear resonance, her work it set a gold standard for musical storytelling that few have surpassed since.
Julie Andrews is no longer trilling on the Alps, nor is she reprising her role as queen of Genovia in a “Princess Diaries” film, but her voice, and what it represented for more than 80 years, endures. It lives on not just in films and recordings but also ringing in the minds of children and adults alike, from her hometown of Walton-on-Thames to the Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. In an age of doom scrolling (and alarmingly low singing standards), her vast career offers a rare resonance and a continuing masterclass.
Shams-il Arefin Islam, a Yale-Berkeley College associate fellow who works on climate mitigation and adaptation, is a classically trained tenor.
Perez Hilton’s website has offered an update on the celebrity gossip blogger’s progress following his apparent August suicide attempt, revealing that he has been allowed to see his children and mother.
“They were first able to spend time together through a few video calls, and since then, Hilton has also been able to see his children and his mom a few times for short, supervised visits at the facility,” according to the site. “Seeing his children in person has meant an enormous amount to Perez. There have definitely been a lot of emotions for everyone, but being able to spend that time together has been incredibly meaningful and healing.”
Hilton, born Mario Lavandeira Jr., experienced a mental health crisis on the night of Aug. 4 in his Miami home and livestreamed himself engaging in self-harm with a box cutter and knife as followers pleaded with him to stop and attempted to contact him.
Hilton spent weeks in the hospital receiving treatment for his physical injuries before being transferred to a residential treatment program, where he could “focus fully on his mental health and recovery,” according to a family statement from earlier this month.
However, Hilton’s brother-in-law said on a podcast on Aug. 24 that Hilton had not had any contact with his kids, as “they were not allowed in that section of the facility.”
Tuesday’s update also publicized a GoFundMe fundraiser created for Hilton’s mother, Teresita Lavandeira, and Hilton’s three school-age children. The fundraiser, organized by theater producer Tom D’Angora, who has described himself as a longtime friend of Hilton’s, promised that “none of the money will be used for Perez personally.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, the fundraiser had raised about $14,000 out of its $25,000 goal. D’Angora was not immediately available for comment.
“Like any grandmother who suddenly finds herself responsible for raising three growing children, she’s also taken on significant and unexpected expenses,” the fundraiser website says. “Perez’s family and friends are helping however we can. We also wanted to give the many people who have asked how they can help a way to do so.”
The site’s Tuesday update said there was still no available timeline for when Perez would exit residential treatment.
“Communication with Perez is still limited, and we’re not able to talk to him daily,” the statement read.
But it assured that he was making progress.
“He’s continuing to work with his care team on understanding what led to his mental health crisis, recognizing warning signs, learning better ways to cope, and working through everything that brought him to this point,” according to the site.
Hilton has been a controversial media figure since the mid-2000s, when he launched a celebrity gossip blog called PageSixSixSix. After the New York Post sued him, he rebranded it to Perez Hilton, a play on socialite Paris Hilton’s name.
During its heyday, Hilton’s successful website — on which he would publish mocking posts about Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan and spread conspiracy theories about celebrity deaths — generated about 8 million page views a day, The Times’ columnist Robin Abcarian wrote recently. In 2010, he declined a $20-million offer for his website, according to reporting by the now-defunct outlet Gawker.
“Real Housewives of New Jersey” star Teresa Giudice is asking for privacy for her daughter Milania Guidice after an incident at the airport resulted in police intervention.
On Wednesday, Tampa International Airport police were called to step in when Milania, 20, reportedly became emotional and ran away from her reality star mom, older sister, Gia Giudice, and a counselor traveling with the family. Police bodycam footage, obtained by TMZ, revealed the family was fighting over a recent health scare involving Milania.
In the video, the family is in an elevator with police, and Teresa is heard explaining that her daughter “had fentanyl in her system” and that she wants to save her daughter’s life. “You’re reckless,” Teresa says to Milania. “After you get help, you never have to speak to me again.”
Milania retorted that she “was laced” and said, “I go to college.” Milania, who attends the University of Tampa, then asked if she was going to be placed “back in the psych ward.” Earlier in the clip, a police officer is heard explaining that Milania had been released from a Baker Act facility and was being transported to a rehabilitation facility.
“As a mother, there is nothing more important to me than the health, safety, and well-being of my children,” Teresa wrote in a statement on Instagram on Monday. “The past few months have been incredibly difficult for our family, and I feel it is important to say something while also protecting my daughter during an extremely vulnerable time in her life.
“Milania has experienced tremendous heartbreak and significant psychological trauma after losing two of her best friends. Grief affects everyone differently, and watching your child try to process that kind of loss is something no parent can ever truly prepare for.”
In July, Milania’s best friend, Victoria Zardoya, died on a weekend trip to Tampa, during which the 20-year-old sustained fatal injuries when she fell while exploring the ruins of Ft. Dade from the Spanish-American War with a group of friends.
It’s unclear who the second friend is.
“Right now, my only focus is my daughter — making sure she is surrounded by love, family, support, and the care she needs,” Teresa’s statement continued. “I understand that because our family has lived much of our lives in the public eye, there will naturally be questions and speculation. But Milania is my daughter before she is anything else. She is a young woman going through an incredibly difficult and deeply personal time, and she deserves the opportunity to heal without every moment of her pain being analyzed publicly.
“I am asking, from one mother to another, and from one family to all of you, to please show Milania compassion and kindness and allow her the privacy she needs right now,” the statement concluded.
In May, Milania was arrested and charged with simple assault after an incident at the New Jersey home of Teresa and Luis “Louie” Ruelas, Milania’s stepdad. Milania allegedly punched someone in the forehead, who was referred to in court by the initials “LR.”
If found guilty, she faces up to six months in jail, probation and a $500 fine. Her next hearing is Tuesday.
The BBC has made the decision to edit episodes of Horrible Histories, which featured sketches including child workers and slavery, after they failed to meet strict guidelines.
18:13, 28 Sep 2026Updated 18:14, 28 Sep 2026
Episodes of Horrible Histories have been removed or edited by the BBC(Image: BBC)
The BBC has edited and removed sketches from Horrible Histories. The broadcaster decided to edit the programme after it failed to meet guidelines for children’s programmes.
The broadcaster has also removed an entire episode of the show featuring slavery, Victorian child workers and chimney sweeps. Horrible Histories is based on the bestselling book series of the same name by Terry Deary, which was intended to pique children’s interest in history.
The show, produced for CBBC, debuted in 2009 and aired 11 series before ending in 2014. At least seven sketches or scenes have been removed from the show, including one showing Madame Tussaud making wax masks from severed heads, according to The Times.
Another sketch, no longer available on BBCiPlayer, depicted white actors using darker makeup to portray ancient Egyptians or Incas.
Actor Mathew Baynton, who played characters including William Shakespeare and Guy Fawkes on the programme, previously said it could be argued the show did “blackface” in its depiction of Egyptians.
Speaking to The Telegraph in 2022, he said: “We didn’t do blackface, for example, but you could argue that we did. Because I played Egyptians, you know, for example, where you’d get a spray tan, essentially, and stand in your pants.”
The episode, which has been removed, is said to have featured a sketch teaching children about slavery in ancient Rome by depicting a Roman galley as an airline flight, with enslaved rowers chained to their oars and told they will not be allowed to escape if the ship sinks.
Another sketch showcased how children in the Victorian era were sent into dangerous and narrow chimneys, with one young boy being sent into the chimney and being told: “Try not to die.”
A spokesperson for the BBC said: “The edits to Horrible Histories were made seven years ago, in consultation with the programme makers, to ensure the series meets our editorial guidelines for children’s programmes.”
The news comes after the BBC removed several sketches from That Mitchell and Webb Look when the show aired on iPlayer, having decided that some of the material “no longer works today”.
To celebrate the sketch comedy programme’s 20th anniversary, the national broadcaster added four seasons of the smash-hit show onto iPlayer for fans to enjoy – but with a few notable omissions.
A total of 11 sketches had been edited out amid fears of racism and ethnic stereotyping. “That Mitchell and Webb Look has been made available on BBC iPlayer,” the broadcaster said in a statement. “This is a 20-year-old sketch show; in consultation with the programme makers, we have included the ones that still work today and not the ones that don’t.”
As per The Times, material removed from the programme included scenes featuring war re-enactors in blackface, a joke about Jimmy Savile, and an indigenous tribe living in a garden centre.
One now-deleted sketch shows Mitchell playing a woman in a burka in a scene that sends up reality TV programming. The sketch then cuts to the pair – as themselves – discussing whether or not the sketch itself is actually offensive.
The Mirror has approached Horrible Histories author Terry Deary for comment.
It’s never been a more terrifying time to be an undocumented immigrant in America. Despite countless protests and pushback, ICE agents continue to patrol the streets. In July, Colombian immigrant Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was shot and killed by an ICE officer in Biddeford, Maine, during a routine traffic stop.
But what about the white-passing undocumented immigrants that seem to slip through the system? The ones who blend in so seamlessly (despite the thick accents of some)? We forget they are also legally not supposed to be here. Specifically, those from Eastern Europe, Russia and the former Soviet Union. And what about those young, desperate women who suggestively posed for the camera as the Soviet Union collapsed all around them, hoping to be chosen by an American man?
Book Review
Ungrateful Immigrant Daughter: A Memoir From the Child of a Mail-Order Bride
By Katya Suvorova Alcove Press: 352 pages, $30
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Katya Suvorova’s searing debut memoir, “Ungrateful Immigrant Daughter: A Memoir from the Child of a Mail-Order Bride,” out Sept. 29, is a heart-wrenching tale of immigration that pulls back the velvety red curtain to reveal one story behind the over-sexualized stereotypical post-Soviet mail-order bride narrative so ingrained in post-Cold War U.S. culture.
My own family legally immigrated to the U.S. from Soviet Belarus in the early 1990s. I grew up with the Western media narrative that Eastern European women were submissive sex symbols, desperate for financial security. Some boys in school even assumed I was “easy” because I was Eastern European.
Mostly told from a child’s point-of-view, Suvorova’s “Ungrateful” traces their journey in the ’90s from Russia to the U.S. and life thereafter, as white-passing undocumented immigrants who illegally crossed the border from Mexico — with the help of a man who replied to her mother’s mail-order-bride ad in a catalog. A catalog Suvorova would find years (and many rich American stepfathers) later while cleaning out the garage, and realize her mother had lied to her. She was not, in fact, a model, posing for a Coca-Cola ad, but a young woman with a small child desperate to leave Russia behind for the West. When Suvorova confronts her mother after finding the catalog, her mother replies: “Everyone was doing it.”
Mail-order brides shaped early colonial America. Men were often the first to settle small Western frontier towns and would in turn grow lonely for companionship. Newspaper ads for brides were normalized and proliferated in 19th century America. According to historian Elliott West, “Some mining camps in Idaho in 1870 had nine men for every woman.” The truth is that love didn’t enter the picture when it came to marriage until about the 19th century with the Victorians; before then, marriage was more like a business contract, with dowries and cows alike.
Letter brides remained ubiquitous in 20th century America and were not stigmatized until the 1970s and 1980s when it became more apparent that mail-order immigrant brides from developing Southeast Asian and Eastern European countries were being abused and exploited. It wasn’t until 2005 that the U.S. passed the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act (IMBRA), which requires background checks and other precautions meant to protect foreign brides from domestic abuse, violence and exploitation. You don’t have to dig deep to see this narrative proliferated in our culture. Jeffrey Epstein mostly recruited Eastern European women into his international sex-trafficking ring.
Author Katya Suvorova
(Alcove Press)
Suvorova and her mother were not spared such indignities. Abuse, both psychological and physical, permeates the pages of “Ungrateful.” From one of her earliest childhood memories of watching her mother being abused while stuck in a closet to later tales of her mother’s forced alcohol abuse and estrangement from her own mother (Suvorova’s beloved Babushka), expertly executed by her stepfather Adam — the abuse ran rampant. Suvorova herself is a victim, neglected by her mother and forced to act as a child bride to please one of the husbands. Eventually, Suvorova realizes that it wasn’t just her mother that was sold in a catalog to an American suitor, but her young daughter (Suvorova) as well. It’s no surprise that Suvorova is estranged from her mother, a topic she covers often on her social media.
Of course, there is also the “gold digger” stigma. Suvorova writes about girls in school accusing her mother of being a gold digger, intentionally choosing rich boyfriends that would eventually become rich husbands while they lived in poverty and couch surfed. Suvorova’s mother would use creative tactics to find these men: hang out in five-star hotels or fancy athletic clubs. She would have them buy her computers, clothes and expensive jewelry she could sell later. She always ordered the priciest thing on the menu and bought gift cards when the men gave her money for groceries in case the relationship did not work out. She passed down these survival tactics to Suvorova like gospel. But, ultimately, it wasn’t money that her mother was after, it was green cards for them both, the permanence and safety of American citizenship: the American Dream.
In 2012, I dressed up as a mail-order bride for Halloween. I was 22, about the age Suvorova’s mother was when they immigrated to the U.S. I wore a tight sleeveless red American Apparel dress. Shiny fake patent leather pumps. A white veil from Claire’s at the mall. I covered myself in bits of cardboard, packing tape and foam peanuts and overdid my makeup with several coats of mascara and thick black eyeliner. I thought this costume was funny, clever, appropriating and reclaiming the narrative that haunted me all my life. I thought because of where I was born, I was allowed to do this. A notoriously blunt girl who I sensed didn’t like me approached while I was waiting for the bathroom. “What are you, a slut?” she said, scanning me like a barcode.
Suvorova’s memoir effectively shows the risks immigrants were willing to take to escape the collapse of the Soviet Union and the corruption (ruled by the KGB) that followed. Without explicitly diving in, her writing sheds light on today’s Russian corruption and Putin’s endless war with Ukraine, which is ultimately a war against the West. In fact, Suvorova and many antiwar Russian immigrants today are terrified to return to their motherland due to fear of imprisonment and retaliation, as one Los Angeles woman in 2024 learned the hard way upon landing in Russia, receiving a 12-year prison sentence for donating $51 to a Ukrainian charity.
In the building I grew up in and my parents managed, a young Russian “model” and her mother lived with a much older Persian man. Without much inquiry, I simply assumed she was a mail-order bride running from a traumatic past in the motherland, ordered from a catalog to make him dinner and vacuum his carpet. Closer to my age than not, she became my friend. Gifted me jewelry. Babysat me while my parents drank tea with her mother. I later found out she cheated on the Persian man, laid out her wedding dress on the soiled carpet while he was at work, and moved herself and her mother to Las Vegas, where she started a successful business and bought a house.
Suvorova’s story is not just about the childhood trauma inflicted by her mail-order-bride mother, but it’s a redemption story about reuniting with her beloved maternal Babushka and biological father. It’s a story of self-discovery. Not unlike the bestselling memoir “Educated” by Tara Westover, who overcomes an abusive childhood in a rural survivalist Mormon family. Like Westover, Suvorova finds shelter in books, school and an education.
Like all contemporary creative nonfiction writers and memoirists who are not celebrities, Suvorova must have been told somewhere down the line that in order to sell her memoir she must gain a following on social media, and she’s done just that. With about 95,000 followers on Instagram, Suvorova uses the platform to reveal earnest roundups, tips, tragic tales of estrangement and survival, and summaries of deleted chapters of “Ungrateful” as blocks of text over grainy film photos of her as a child. Suvorova’s very active social media presence sheds light on the current state of memoir and nonfiction publishing: You must have a platform to be read.
In a bizarre meta twist of events, Suvorova must sell herself and her story on social media, like her mother sold herself (and in turn her daughter) to those American husbands. In a stroke of marketing genius, some early copies of “Ungrateful” come with book-branded condoms.
And despite revealing in the memoir that she eventually did become an American citizen, Suvorova has since moved to Europe. When I asked Suvorova over Instagram direct message why she and her husband left the U.S. for Europe, she replied: “We left because I didn’t feel safe publishing my book about growing up as an undocumented kid under the current Trump administration. I have to take medicine that, if I were detained and could not take it, would lead to organ failure. We knew ICE was detaining U.S. citizens as well and decided not to risk it. In order to still publish the book and not be detained, we left the U.S.”
How many of us have been cruel immigrant daughters (or sons)? Ungrateful. Spoiled. Unaware or unwilling to acknowledge how much our parents have sacrificed to get us here. In the case of Suvorova’s memoir — although, she does acknowledge her white privilege — she certainly has a lot to be ungrateful for.
Ruzova is a Soviet-born writer based in Los Angeles. Her essay “The Sauna” was a notable in Best American Essays 2025.
Head of the Roman Catholic Church holds ’emotional’ two-hour meeting with seven abuse victims in French town of Lourdes.
Published On 27 Sep 202627 Sep 2026
Pope Leo XIV has thanked a group of survivors of clerical abuse “for their painful testimony” and “reaffirmed his commitment” to end harm by Catholic priests at a meeting in southwestern France, the Vatican said.
On Sunday, the pontiff visited the pilgrimage town of Lourdes, where he privately met seven survivors of child abuse, now adults, and promised to further efforts to reform the Church in the wake of the global sexual abuse scandal.
The group said in a later news conference that the meeting was emotional and touching.
“When he saw the state I was in, he took me into his arms,” survivor Jean-Marie Delbos said, adding, “It was an extraordinary moment.”
The 80-year-old was abused as a pupil at the nearby boarding school of Notre-Dame de Betharram, where staff have been accused of physical and sexual abuse over several decades.
The survivors said they felt heard and that they were impressed by Leo’s compassion and knowledge of their individual cases.
But they hoped the words would be accompanied by action.
Jerome Guillement, who has written about a priest abusing him as a teenager, said at the news conference that the pope understood the “systemic” nature of sexual abuse in the Church.
“From his point of view, the perpetrators are individuals, but what allows it to continue is the systemic dimension within the institution,” he said.
“He certainly believes that the Church has done a great deal in France, but he also believes that the Church in France still has a tremendous amount left to do.”
Pope Leo participates in a candlelight procession at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in Lourdes, France, September 27, 2026, as part of his four-day apostolic journey to France [Stephane Mahe/Reuters]
Local leaders hoped Leo’s visit would help repair the Church’s standing after a 2021 independent inquiry found that some 330,000 French children had been abused by Catholic clergy and lay leaders over seven decades.
The pope told an estimated 150,000 people gathered for a Mass in a field near the famed Catholic shrine in Lourdes earlier on Sunday that the Church must have the courage to face its past.
Veronique Garnier, another survivor who met with the pontiff, said she had found the Mass, in which Leo referred to abuse without directly apologising for it, troubling and wondered why she had attended.
But she said she was encouraged by her meeting with Leo.
“I do indeed believe there is hope – hope that there can be change and truly listening to us at a deep level, rather than just superficially with beautiful words that are never followed by any real action,” she said.
Leo also spoke about the abuse scandals in a closed-door meeting with French bishops on Sunday, according to a Vatican-provided text.
He was expected to visit the northeastern city of Metz on Monday before returning to Rome the same day.