NICKI Chapman has revealed she’s had a FOURTH operation on her foot as she shared a snap from her hospital bed.
The TV host, 59, best known for presenting Escape to The Countryside, Pop Idol and Wanted Down Under, took to Instagram to post a health update with her 160k followers.
Nicki Chapman has opened up about her FOURTH operation on her footCredit: nickichappers/InstagramNicki has presented the likes of Escape to The Countryside, Pop Idol and Wanted Down UnderCredit: PA
In one picture she put her thumb up as she pointed at her boot while in hospital, followed by another of her out and about in London with a walking stick for support.
She captioned the post: “Every little step.
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“Slowly getting there & managed to walk to the end of the road. Result! Note snazzy stick mainly to keep people away from my foot!
“Fourth op over the years – never gonna make Strictly Come Dancing nor run a marathon but grateful for each tweak keeping me mobile & pain free.
She’s also had problems with her ankle since she was 15 and was diagnosed with ankle spurs.
The NHS website describes it as: “Osteophytes (bone spurs) are bony lumps that grow on the bones in the spine or around joints. They form when a joint or bone has been damaged by arthritis, but do not always cause problems.”
Nicki previously recalled: “I started getting pains that felt like I’d twisted it – I couldn’t work out what I’d done.
“It was so sore I went to my doctor and was referred to a consultant who diagnosed ankle spurs. Bone spurs are tiny pointed outgrowths of bone which occur where the normal bone keeps growing.
“They were causing a restriction within my ankle, which became inflamed and excruciatingly painful.
“I had an operation to remove them, and remember my consultant warning me against pursuing any career involving standing up – otherwise I’d have serious problems by the time I was 30.
“I’d always wanted to be a theatrical make-up artist, which involves lots of standing, so my career dreams were shattered. But I followed his advice because looking after my wellbeing was paramount.”
20 years later Nicki had to have a second operation, and underwent surgery for a third time in 2015.
BLAINE, Wash. — The Trump administration’s top border official defended plans to build a wall and other infrastructure in Texas’ Big Bend region despite mounting opposition against the project and a court-ordered pause on construction, saying his goal of fortifying the country’s borders was “non-negotiable.”
In an exclusive interview with the Associated Press, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott argued that the $46-billion wall project was justified despite a bipartisan coalition of landowners, local businesses and environmentalists who view it as a waste of taxpayer money that could be destructive to a region with historically low migrant crossings.
“Our No. 1 goal right out the gate is we have to know who and what is coming into the United States,” Scott said on Thursday. If the Big Bend region were left without a wall or other border infrastructure while other areas along the border get those fortifications, he said, “I am 100% convinced it will be completely overrun and destroyed.”
The fight over Big Bend has become a major test for how far the Republican administration is willing to go for the border wall, President Trump’s signature infrastructure project.
Scott, a former Border Patrol agent, was tapped by Trump to complete it.
His agency is responsible for executing a plan funded last summer by Republicans in Congress to line the roughly 2,000-mile border with Mexico with a mixture of 30-foot-tall steel walls, vehicle barriers, new roads and surveillance technology to prevent illegal immigration and smuggling.
The Trump administration says it is building about 12 miles a week. Scott, who gets daily progress updates, said it will be complete by the end of Trump’s second term. The primary border wall — some areas also get a secondary layer — will be done by the end of December 2027.
“We’re actually ahead of schedule,” Scott said.
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1.Charlie Angell stands on an overlook of the Rio Grande river2.Pamela Priddy, center, holds up signs with others during a weekly protest against barriers along the border in the Big Bend region, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026, in Study Butte, Texas.(John Locher / Ap Photo/john Locher)
Big Bend is a test for the Trump administration’s plans for the wall
The wall plan has run into resistance in places like Big Bend. The Trump administration was dealt a major setback earlier this month when a judge ordered a pause on border wall construction in the region, citing what could be a likelihood that plaintiffs “will suffer serious, irreparable harm without an injunction.” The administration has asked the Supreme Court to lift the order.
The ruling included any construction in Big Bend National Park, an area that has seen a loud bipartisan outcry, including from some Republican lawmakers.
After bulldozers were spotted in the park tearing up ground in August, Scott ordered a pause on all construction-related activity there while he went to talk to people in the region. He said the agency is making other outreach to locals to discuss how to build projects so they don’t mar the park.
“We’re talking through and figuring out what is the right solution for that area,” he said.
Scott said he can’t get into specific details on what the agency’s plans are for the park because of the numerous ongoing lawsuits, but he reiterated that the project won’t include tall steel walls.
He also said that the agency’s stated goal of protecting the country and knowing what’s coming in and going out is “non-negotiable.”
He said the region’s formidable natural barriers were not enough to prevent people from entering the country illegally through other more navigable points. And he expressed concern that cartels that control smuggling from Mexico into the U.S. would exploit any opening.
CBP has come under fire for immigration enforcement tactics
Scott leads an agency of 67,000 employees responsible for controlling who and what comes into the country through official border crossings like airports or seaports and stopping illegal smuggling and migration outside those official border crossing points.
The agency came under heavy scrutiny last year when its officers were sent into cities deep inside the country to help carry out Trump’s immigration crackdown alongside Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Agents with the Department of Homeland Security, which includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol and Customs Enforcement patrol in a neighborhood after apprehending a person on Jan. 31 in St. Paul, Minn.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
As protests against an operation rocked Minneapolis, a Border Patrol officer and a CBP officer both fired shots in an encounter that killed a U.S. citizen, Alex Pretti. The shooting eventually prompted the Trump administration to wind down high-profile city-based crackdowns. A CBP officer who was the face of the missions, Gregory Bovino, who led a helicopter raid at a large apartment building and used chemical agents to confront demonstrators, retired earlier this year.
Scott said while CBP still helps ICE, it’s now less involved in immigration enforcement far from the country’s borders because ICE has since hired more officers to its ranks. Scott wouldn’t comment on the investigation into the Pretti killing, saying that it was being handled by the FBI and was ongoing. And when asked about Bovino’s tactics, he said the officer didn’t report to him during the operations.
Scott spoke to the AP just outside the border with Canada, where he met with border security representatives from other countries to share information about threats and trends. During his trip, he visited an operations center where he said Canadian and American law enforcement work together.
That border has far fewer threats than the U.S. border with Mexico. Scott said cartels in Mexico are increasingly sending drones into the United States to move contraband and keep tabs on Border Patrol agents. In Mexico, the cartels have been using drones to attack each other or Mexican law enforcement.
The Department of Homeland Security, which includes CBP, recently announced temporary flight restrictions targeting unauthorized drone activity in a zone extending a mile north of the U.S.-Mexico border as a way to counter cartels.
“We want to make sure,” Scott said, “that threat does not come into the United States.”
Global crude prices continue to climb, with Brent benchmark hitting $117.30 a barrel to build on four-year highs as market fears grow over a potential resumption of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals nixed a trailblazing California law on Wednesday, permanently barring the state’s efforts to force federal immigration agents to display identification while on duty.
“As before, we conclude … the No Vigilantes Act attempts to directly regulate the United States in its performance of governmental functions,” Judge Mark J. Bennett wrote for the panel. “No set of circumstances exist under which the Act would be valid.”
The U.S. Justice Department first sued to block the ID requirement alongside a related law attempting to ban masks for federal agents and local police in the fall of 2025.
The joint case hit Los Angeles federal court at the beginning of this year amid a surge of immigration enforcement in Minneapolis that led to the shootings of civilians Renee Good and Alex Pretti by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
By then, more than a dozen other states were pursuing similar statutes in an effort to rein in what many saw as lawlessness in President Trump’s sprawling deportation force.
Judge Christina A. Snyder ultimately blocked California’s law prohibiting the use of masks by law enforcement, on the grounds that it unfairly carved out an exception for state peace officers, but allowed the ID requirement for ICE agents and others to go forward, agreeing with the state that it was more akin to a speed limit on the highway than a direct regulation of the federal government.
“If a state law directly regulates the governmental conduct of the United States without congressional authorization, it is void irrespective of whether the regulated activities are essential to federal functions or operations, and irrespective of the degree to which the state law interferes with such functions or operations,” Bennett wrote.
The decision comes as ICE is quietly shedding many of the 12,000 new recruits it hired last year. Although public outrage over Trump’s militarized mass deportation efforts has diminished somewhat since the winter, it remains a potent election issue.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll from September showed more than 40% of Americans strongly disapprove of the president’s handling of immigration. Meanwhile, the share who fret over unauthorized immigration is nearly identical to the proportion who worry about the unchecked spread of measles — anxieties that pale in comparison with stress over the cost of living, the proliferation of data centers and the war with Iran, data show.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear arguments in a watchdog’s lawsuit seeking public records about trillionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
The high court is intervening for a second time in Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s case, which seeks access to DOGE records from its operations in the early days of President Trump’s second term. The Trump administration asked the court to hear the case.
Last year, the high court reined in a district court’s order for the government to produce DOGE-related records to CREW. The high court’s conservative majority concluded in June 2025 that U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled too broadly in ordering documents to be turned over to the group.
CREW claims DOGE is a federal agency and therefore is subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
The Trump administration argues that DOGE is exempt from FOIA’s requirements as a presidential advisory body.
Cooper ruled in CREW’s favor and ordered expedited processing of the group’s records request. An appeals court panel also sided with CREW.
The Trump administration claims the panel ignored the Supreme Court’s direction to consider separation-of-powers concerns and intruded on the “autonomy and confidentiality” of presidential advisers.
“Subjecting advisory bodies to intrusive discovery triggers the very concerns that Congress sought to avoid by excluding presidential advisory bodies from FOIA’s reach,” Justice Department attorneys wrote.
The administration also says the appeals court impermissibly authorized the plaintiffs to take a sworn deposition of DOGE acting administrator Amy Gleason.
CREW says the appeals court fully complied with the Supreme Court’s previous order. The group also asserts that the public has a right to know how DOGE helped the administration carry out a sweeping overhaul of government operations in 2025.
“Undisputed facts in the public record — including the President’s statements — confirmed that (DOGE) was wielding enormous independent authority across the federal government,” its attorneys wrote.
