In Donald Trump’s first term, she started a safety initiative called Be Best to keep children safe online, and in 2021, when Trump lost his second election attempt to former president Joe Biden, she bid farewell to the programme, stating: “Over the past two years, Be Best has played a major role in spreading awareness, highlighting successful programs and acts of kindness, and encouraging public-private sector relationships to help children overcome the struggles they face every day.” 

But now she’s taking her security efforts to the next level as she’s now sitting on the United Nations Security Council.

The UN Security Council consists of 15 member states, with five members who hold a permanent seat. Those are ambassadors from the United States, China, France, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom. On top of that, there are10 non-permanent members who get elected to represent their nation and gain a seat for two-year terms, such as Bahrain, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Denmark, and Somalia. 

According to Fox News, Melania will preside over the Council, which marks the first time any first lady in history from any country, will have done so. The UN Security Council is a board that focuses on education, technology, peace, and cyber as well as physical security. As for what Melania will focus on first in her speech to the Council, the outlet reported that a source revealed she’s set on ‘empowering the next generation’.

"The first lady is reinventing her role and this marks just another groundbreaking achievement for her," the source allegedly said. "It is the first time in history a first lady will address the security council, keeping to her mission of empowering the next generation with education and technology." 

As for how sitting members have reacted to Melania’s new role, the US Ambassador to the United Nations Michael Waltz said it’s ‘fitting that the first lady, a passionate and tireless advocate for children, will preside over the first day of America’s presidency of the Security Council.’ He added: “Her message of helping the helpless through education and technology fits exactly with our mission at the U.N., to achieve meaningful and lasting peace. 

"As a green beret and now diplomat, I have seen firsthand that peace prevails where children are taught and not terrorised." In her role, she is thought to be picking up her Be Best initiative, and her Take it Down Act, which was signed into law in May 2025, which punishes online predators for sending non-consensual sexual content.

After Trump’s eldest daughter, Ivanka, 44, took to social media on 24 February to share a whole family photo, people were stuck on one big detail – Barron's height. 

The 19-year-old is the president's youngest child and his only one with First Lady Melania, easily spotted at any event as he towers over his brothers and sisters, as well as his mom and dad, at a gargantuan 6ft 7ins. 

As the teen often avoids his father's political events, he surprised many when he turned up at the State of the Union in a show of Trump family unity alongside his mom and half brothers and sisters, Tiffany, Donald Trump Jr, Eric, and Ivanka. 

But despite showing up for his father Donald Trump, a lip reader did notice a moment of family rancour during the almost two-hour divisive speech, with Barron apparently giving Ivanka a rude response to a cryptic question.

Lip reader Jeremy Freeman told the Mirror that he noticed the siblings having a quiet conversation while President Trump wheeled through a seismic and controversial year in America's domestic and international politics. Freeman said that he detected Ivanka, 44, asking her younger sibling 'What are you doing on...?', though he did not catch the initial context or subject matter of her probing question.

But in a reply that is no doubt familiar to big sisters around the world, Freeman says that Barron gave a particularly surly retort that began with the New York University student saying 'I'm not sure...'. Then he added four rude words to his response. "I couldn't be a***d," Barron apparently told Ivanka. Freeman was not the only one to notice that Barron and Ivanka had something of a dynamic during the State of the Union, which at an hour and 47 minutes in length was the longest in American history.

Body language expert Judi James told the Daily Mail that the rare sighting of all five Trump children in one place showed a new dynamic among the siblings, with their posture revealing that Barron and Ivanka could become a new force in the family. 

She said: "Barron and Ivanka seemed to have formed a new sibling power couple, sitting side by side, with Barron looking watchful and serious while Ivanka chatted to him until they were engaged together in some ongoing conversation." 

Meanwhile, Charlie Kirk's widow, Erika, also received the lipreading treatment, as she was seen mouthing a three-word phrase when President Trump paid tribute to her late husband, who died on September 10, 2025.

With the country’s gold medal-winning hockey team even making an appearance, Trump spoke about the likes of Iran, tariffs and the economy. But while Trump’s State of the Union was going on, so was a counter-address; ‘The State of the Swamp’. Attended by the likes of Don Lemon and Mark Ruffalo, Robert De Niro headlined the event. 

According to the event's organisers, Defiance.org, it was ‘focused on defying Donald Trump's abuses of power, including officials who previously advised Trump’. And, along with comments he made on a podcast released the day before, Hollywood icon De Niro is now facing threats of deportation.

Trump has accused the Goodfellas actor of ‘Trump derangement’. Born in New York, the 82-year-old has been outspoken for the past decade or so about Trump and criticised him and his MAGA supporters during the episode of MSNBC’s The Best People with Nicole Wallace podcast. “He’s an idiot. We gotta get rid of him. He’s gonna ruin the country,” De Niro said. 

The star went on to add: “I don’t want everybody going around with their MAGA, the American flags, like they’re the only ones. We are Americans too.” During his emotional speech at the State of the Swamp event, he described the president as ‘failing, flailing and desperate’.

And yesterday, Trump went on a fiery rant as he labelled the Heat actor as ‘demented’ in a Truth Social post. He proposed deporting Reps Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib who left the Capitol building early on Tuesday after shouting him down during his speech.

Calling them ‘lunatics’, the president went on to write: “They should actually get on a boat with Trump Deranged Robert De Niro, another sick and demented person with, I believe, an extremely Low IQ, who has absolutely no idea what he is doing or saying — some of which is seriously CRIMINAL!” He continued: 

“When I watched him break down in tears last night, much like a child would do, I realised that he may be even sicker than Crazy Rosie O’Donnell, who is right now in Ireland trying to figure out how to come back into our beautiful United States.” 

Trump claimed the ‘only difference’ between the actor and comedian is that she is ‘probably somewhat smarter’. “The good news is that America is now Bigger, Better, Richer, and Stronger than ever before, and it’s driving them absolutely crazy! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP,” he added in his post.

What is ‘Trump derangement’?

A term coined by MAGA supporters, 'Trump derangement' is often used to describe critics of Donald Trump. It appears to be an adaptation of 'Bush derangement syndrome', a phrase dubbed by conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer during George W Bush's presidency in 2003. 

Writing about 'Trump derangement syndrome' for the Therapy Group of DC, psychologist Brad Brenner, PhD, noted that it 'discredits rather than describes and its very existence shows how political language can blur the line between clinical insight and partisan insult'. 

The president himself has regularly used the phrase to describe his political opponents and sparked backlash after claiming filmmaker Rob Reiner's death was linked to 'Trump derangement syndrome'.

Escobar is perhaps the most famous drug lord of all time, having built the Medellín Cartel, and that unsurprisingly made him an incredibly rich man. Most sensible folks would know better than going anywhere near Escobar's hard-earned cash but one lucky, or unlucky, farmer wasn't left with much choice after discovering $600 million on his family ranch. 

Josè Mariena Cartolos was in the middle of making a trench for irrigation purposes when he discovered several contained filled to the brim with money, which might not have been the cleanest in the most literal or figurative sense. 

Despite making the discovery in 2015, more than 20 years after Escobar's death, Cartolos clearly didn't want to be in debt to anyone still close to the legendary criminal, as he alerted the authorities almost immediately despite discovering over half a billion dollars.

Unfortunately for him, and for Escobar's associates, the authorities decided to seize every penny, without leaving him anything, so he's probably kicking himself for being so honest when he could have at least got himself a new tractor. 

Instead, it was spent on social and economic programs by the Colombian government, MTV Lebanon previously reported, which I suppose is a nice way to spend it too, even if Escobar might have been rolling in his grave. Reacting on Reddit, plenty of people admitted that they might not have been so honest if they found themselves in a similar situation.

One person on Reddit wrote: "Never would’ve said a word. Would’ve loaded that up and been gone." Another added: "Why would he report it? I’d be living the high life right now." A third joked: "I'd invoke the law of finders keepers." And a fourth laughed: "Dude won the lottery and and said 'no thank you.'" 

Others reckoned that Cartolos definitely did the right thing, especially as the Pablo Escobar is supposedly the rightful owner of the cash. "Finding a stash that belongs to a cartel is a 'I'm f***ed' situation," one person commented. 

"The first question is: how do I get out of that alive?" Another chimed in saying: "Any Colombian farmer would know better than to advertise this lol." And a third pointed out: "I promise you that you would have no idea what to do with $600m in illegal cash."

 

For those in need of a reminder, 44-year-old Ivanka is the second of the three children the President welcomed with late wife, Ivana. The couple also shared Donald Jr, 48, and Eric, 42, until their mother's death in 2022. 

Whilst married to Ivana, Republican frontman Trump had an affair with model and actress Marla Maples (whom he later wed, and subsequently divorced) which resulted in the birth of his second daughter, Tiffany, 32. With third wife, Melania Trump - the current First Lady to the United States - 79-year-old Trump shares one son, his youngest, Barron.

The baby of the brood, Barron is just 19. Despite currently enrolled as a student at NYU's Stern School of Business, the teen made an appearance alongside Donald Jr, Ivanka and Tiffany in Washington D.C. on Tuesday (24 Feb), where they attended their father's the State of the Union address. 

A family photo that businesswoman Ivanka shared prior to the address - which also included her husband, Jared Kushner, Donald Jr's fiancée Bettina Anderson, Tiffany's husband Michael Boulos - featured Barron smiling on the end. 

It wasn't just his rare public appearance that prompted online discussion after the snap was shared on X (formerly Twitter), however, but Barron's absolutely staggering height. Responding to the image, one social media user joked: "Barron is 12 foot tall."

"Yo they don't make XXXXXL ties," another teased. "He's so damn tall. Unreal!" A third also jibed: "Baron is an absolute unit." The Palm Beach Post previously reported that Barron stands somewhere between 6'7 and 6'9 tall, making him by far the tallest of his siblings. The youngster even towers above his parents, with right-wing leader Trump being 6'3'', and 55-year-old Melania being 5'11.

The First Lady was also in attendance alongside Barron and his stepchildren yesterday, where her husband delivered a 1 hour and 48 minute speech - the longest of its kind in modern history. 

Trump's latest public pledge focussed heavily on a self-declared 'economic turnaround', as well as his hardline stance on immigration and foreign policy, which comes amid slumping Republican approval ratings and approaching midterm elections.

However, on 19 February, American-born Gu was questioned after the qualifiers about comments Vance made about her affiliation with China. Vance had said he thought a person who grew up in the US would ‘want to compete with the United States’ when asked about Gu in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday (17 February). 

Vance said he has ‘no idea’ what Gu’s status ‘should be,’ but: “I certainly think that somebody who grew up in the United States of America, who benefited from our education system, from the freedoms and liberties that make this country a great place, I would hope that they want to compete with the United States of America.”

He added: “So, I’m going to root for American athletes. I think part of that is people who identify themselves as Americans. That’s who I’m rooting for in this Olympics.” His words were brought up by reporters, who asked her if she feels ‘like a bit of a punching bag for a certain strand of American politics at the moment.’ “I do,” Gu responded to reporters at the Games. 

She went on to say people are more bothered about it because ‘I win’, explaining: “Like if I wasn't doing well, I think that they probably wouldn't care as much, and that's OK for me. People are entitled to their opinions.”

The 22-year-old responded to the VP’s comments in a conversation with USA TODAY, saying: “I’m flattered. Thanks, JD! That’s sweet.” This comes after Gu defended American freeskier Hunter Hess after he revealed he didn’t feel too comfortable representing the US in light of its current administration. 

To this, Donald Trump called him a ‘real loser’ in a social media post. “As someone who’s been caught in the crossfire before, I feel sorry for the athletes,” Gu said. Gu was born in San Francisco, California, to Yan Gu, a first-generation Chinese immigrant to the United States, and an American father, and schooled at Stanford University. 

Prince William, 43, and Kate Middleton, 44, stepped out onto the red carpet at the Royal Festival Hall to celebrate the best of British film and TV at the annual awards ceremony yesterday (22 February). Kate looked stunning in a princess-style Gucci gown, while her husband donned a burgundy maroon tuxedo for the outing. 

The royal couple posed for red carpet snaps and chatted to representatives from BAFTA and the Southbank Centre before taking their seats in the star-studded auditorium for the awards ceremony.

While on the red carpet, the couple whispered a few words to each other, and a lip reader claims to have decoded the moment, according to The Mirror. Lip reader Jeremy Freeman told the publication that Kate allegedly said to her husband: "Look at the people!" before eagerly waving at them and saying: "Hey!"

William then apparently told Kate to 'watch your step' as they made their way inside for the ceremony. The royal couple also chatted about movies, as William admitted he's yet to see Hamnet, which won big, bagging best outstanding British film, while its Irish star Jessie Buckley won best actress for her performance as Shakespeare’s wife, Agnes Hathaway. 

William told Elaine Bedell, chief executive of the Southbank Centre, and Allison Kirkby, chief executive of BT Group, that he had yet to see the acclaimed film as he's not 'calm' enough right now. He said: "I need to be in quite a calm state and I’m not at the moment. 

I will save it." While Kate said she saw the movie on Saturday (21 February), dubbing it as 'really very very powerful', while praising the 'fantastic' and 'raw' music score and talked about its portrayal of 'intergenerational grief'. 

Chatting with the chairwoman of BAFTA’s film committee, Emily Stillman, and executive director of the charity’s awards and content, Emma Baehr, the princess said: "Yes, I think it was a very bad idea actually… ended up with very puffy eyes."

Kate also said her three children, Prince George, 12, Princess Charlotte, 10, and Prince Louis, seven, would love to have a closer look at the BAFTA film world. She said: “They love the idea of being behind the scenes and finding out how it all happens," adding that 'the children are getting into film a bit more'. 

“It’s a really great way to have some of the hard conversations with them. We have still got a long list of films we haven’t seen. Hopefully, this will help," Kate added. And towards the end of the show, William got on stage to present the BAFTA fellowship award to NBCUniversal’s chair of entertainment, Dame Donna Langley, for her outstanding contribution to film and television. 

He said: “Her transformative leadership and unwavering commitment to creative partnership have brought some of this century’s most iconic films to the big screen and to audiences around the world. “She has championed films that have shaped culture, and is responsible for some of our most beloved franchises.”

The American actor passed away earlier this week following a battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and an appeal was launched to raise money for his grieving wife and two daughters, subsequently raising close to $300,000.  

A statement from his family read: "With heavy hearts, we share that Eric Dane passed on Thursday afternoon following a courageous battle with ALS. "He spent his final days surrounded by dear friends, his devoted wife, and his two beautiful daughters, Billie and Georgia, who were the centre of his world." 

Much like the family of James Van Der Beek, who were reportedly struggling financially in the wake of expensive medical bills, a fundraiser was set up to support the family Dane left behind, despite the popular actor being a regular feature in the hit medical series Grey's Anatomy, as well as Euphoria.

Dane, who had been diagnosed with the rare degenerative disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), is survived by his wife, Rebecca Gayheart, and their two daughters, Billie and Georgia. The grieving family confirmed the news in a statement to PEOPLE, which reads: "With heavy hearts, we share that Eric Dane passed on Thursday afternoon following a courageous battle with ALS. 

"He spent his final days surrounded by dear friends, his devoted wife, and his two beautiful daughters, Billie and Georgia, who were the center of his world. "Throughout his journey with ALS, Eric became a passionate advocate for awareness and research, determined to make a difference for others facing the same fight."

The message concluded: "He will be deeply missed and lovingly remembered always. Eric adored his fans and is forever grateful for the outpouring of love and support he’s received. The family has asked for privacy as they navigate this impossible time."

In April last year, Dane revealed he had been diagnosed with ALS, a rare degenerative form of motor neurone disease. It leads to muscle weakness in the arms and legs, often causing people to trip or struggle to hold onto things. 

Symptoms vary from person to person, depending on which nerve cells are affected. In most cases, it begins with mild muscle weakness that gradually spreads and becomes more severe over time. Dane's wife opened up about their relationship just one day before Dane announced his diagnosis back in April last year. 

The former Beverly Hills, 90210 star's comments also came a month after she filed to dismiss her 2018 divorce from Dane. He agreed to the filing, and a court in Los Angeles later closed the case, according to documents obtained by E!.

Speaking with E! News at the time, Gayheart said the two were 'best friends'. After calling off their divorce, she explained: "We are really close. We are great coparents. "We really figured out the formula to staying a family, and I think our kids are benefiting greatly from i,t and we are as well."

The American model also reflected on their marriage and why she doesn't believe their relationship is a 'failure', adding: "I think it’s important to not look at a relationship that ends as a failure. It's just a season. "It wasn't a failure. It was a huge success." 

Talking about perspective, the mum-of-two added: "We were married for, I mean, we are still married, but together for 15 years and we had two beautiful kids, so I think that's a successful relationship, and that's how we look at it."

He was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) - sometimes called Lou Gehrig's disease - last year. His family said in a statement: "With heavy hearts, we share that Eric Dane passed on Thursday afternoon following a courageous battle with ALS. 

"He spent his final days surrounded by dear friends, his devoted wife, and his two beautiful daughters, Billie and Georgia, who were the center of his world. "Throughout his journey with ALS, Eric became a passionate advocate for awareness and research, determined to make a difference for others facing the same fight. 

"He will be deeply missed, and lovingly remembered always. Eric adored his fans and is forever grateful for the outpouring of love and support he’s received. The family has asked for privacy as they navigate this impossible time."

He had been married to fellow actor Rebecca Gayheart, with the couple sharing two children. Gayheart called off the pair's divorce a month before Dane went public with his ALS diagnosis. They had been separated for seven years. 

She told the Broad Ideas podcast in November 2025 she wanted to be there for her family 'when times are at their worst'. ALS is a degenerative disease which results in progressive muscle paralysis, those with it slowly lose their ability to move independently. 

Eventually, a person diagnosed with the disease will not be able to eat or breathe independently. Speaking to Good Morning America last year, Dane said his ALS diagnosis made him 'angry'. 

"My father was taken from me when I was young. And now, you know, there's a very good chance I'm going to be taken from my girls while they're very young," he had said. In the same interview, he confirmed he had lost the use of his right arm and was concerned that in a few months he would lose the use of his other hand.

In April 2025, Dane revealed he was filming scenes for the upcoming third season of Euphoria. He said at the time: "I feel fortunate that I am able to continue working." Due to his health, he filmed his scenes in a wheelchair. 

The show's creator Sam Levinson paid tribute to the actor in a statement provided to Variety. He said: "I’m heartbroken by the loss of our dear friend Eric. Working with him was an honor. Being his friend was a gift. Eric’s family is in our prayers. May his memory be for a blessing."

Dane had been scheduled to receive an award last month for his work raising awareness of ALS, but had been unable to attend ‘due to the physical realities of ALS’, People reported.