NEW YORK — Tom Selleck opens his autobiography amid an accident. When he and his two pals take off in his mother’s red Chevy Corvair and tumble down Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles, he is seventeen years old and sitting in the passenger seat. Although everyone would finally be alright, it’s a terrifying experience and a special way to begin a look back.

In an interview, the “Magnum, P.I.” and “Blue Bloods” star acknowledges that it’s a strange way to begin. “It seemed like the ideal way to take a brief look back and discuss my upbringing through the traumatic accident and its aftermath.”

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Tom Selleck Examines The Challenging Times That Led To His Success In “Magnum, P.I.” In A New Memoir.

“You Never Know” chronicles Selleck’s time at the University of Southern California, his time in the Army, as Bachelor No. 2 on “The Dating Game,” and several other events leading up to his Emmy and long-lasting popularity as Thomas Magnum.

According to the 79-year-old actor, “I didn’t have one of those headline-grabbing lives,” The Associated Press reports. “Getting into these stories in a way that the reader could get inside my head was the only way I could make the book entertaining, and I think that’s my primary job and goal in this book.”

Selleck penned the work by hand on yellow legal pads for four years, using passages from Raymond Chandler and George Will. He used to write in the afternoon and read his letters to his spouse at supper.

The self-portrait that emerges is of an actor who dedicated himself to honing his art. He completed six unsold pilots and his first major motion picture, the regrettable “Daughters of Satan,” before breaking through in his mid-30s.

Ellis Henican, Selleck’s co-writer, argues that sincerity is what Selleck needs to sell the most. “This guy is aware of who he is.” By staying true to himself over several decades, he has made a very successful career in a challenging industry.

Selleck states that he never intended to write a memoir or divulge embarrassing personal information, but he does discuss the specifics of his covert marriage to Jillie Mack, his second wife, whom he first saw performing in “Cats.” (Yes, Rumpleteazer won his heart.)

“There are many topics that I haven’t discussed and many topics that others have discussed that aren’t really true,” he claims.

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Tom Selleck Examines The Challenging Times That Led To His Success In “Magnum, P.I.” In A New Memoir.

Readers will learn that Selleck, who rose to fame for his polished demeanor, sense of humor, and 6-foot-4 matinee idol appearance, occasionally struggled with doubts and insecurities; as he said in his essay, “That critic on your shoulder is a formidable opponent.”

He explains, “I wanted to speak to young actors in the language of our business.” “The road is not easy. When someone declines 99 percent of the time, your product is you.

Interestingly, Harrison Ford was offered the role of Indiana Jones in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” yet he had to turn it down due to his filming schedule for “Magnum, P.I.” Both may have been accomplished thanks to a Hollywood strike, but Selleck is content, saying in his letter that “my only regret was that the what-if was there from time to time.”

From 1980 until 1988, Magnum, a relaxed detective who had served in the Vietnam War and driven a red Ferrari around Hawaii, was shown on television.

In the 1984 episode “Home from the Sea,” Magnum drifts in the Pacific Ocean by himself until he is rescued while speaking with people from his past; Selleck wins an Emmy. “Dad, I made it. The character asks his father, who was shot down over Korea in 1951, deliriously, “Why didn’t you?” He was forced to host the ceremony the year he won an Emmy.

I still had a portion of me in host mode. I snatched up my Emmy and hurried up to my host’s podium. It was the first time I gazed at the cheering crowd after setting down my Emmy. He writes that the cheering became louder and lasted longer than I had anticipated when I finally did.

Throughout his career, Selleck took risks. He turned down a stable role on “Young and the Restless” and showed up for work on the 1979 TV miniseries “The Sacketts,” despite the director explicitly stating that he didn’t want him.

“My willingness to take risks as a human is what makes me most proud. Although they didn’t always work out, they did so frequently, he claims. “Risk is the cost associated with opportunity.”

Other celebrities are also featured in portrait form, including Carol Burnett, Princess Diana, and Frank Sinatra, who acted in “Magnum, P.I.” and displayed his acting prowess and fury while managing a colostomy bag.

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Tom Selleck Examines The Challenging Times That Led To His Success In “Magnum, P.I.” In A New Memoir.

The final few chapters of the book are where fans of “Blue Bloods” will learn that Selleck was the driving force behind the original show’s decision to focus on characters rather than a procedural, as it had been in the pilot. The show is in its fourteenth season, and he won. “I can’t be that lucky twice,” he writes.

According to Selleck, he approached his work as a bricklayer by making sure every task was completed to the utmost standard before proceeding to the next. That was OK if it meant putting off budgets or scripts.

His statement reads, “My idea of the work wasn’t just showing up and getting paid.” “I always made an effort to conduct myself professionally. You know, like not tossing scripts against the wall and having tantrums.”

SOURCE – (AP)

Justin and Hailey Bieber announced they are expecting a child in an Instagram post Thursday. A representative for Hailey Bieber confirmed to The Associated Press on Thursday that the model is just over six months pregnant.

Both Justin, 30, and Hailey Bieber, 27, shared a video and series of photos in which the model is seen showing off a baby bump in a white gown while the couple stands outside in a ceremony.

Yves Saint Laurent confirmed in a press release that the Biebers took part in a vow renewal in Hawaii on May 9. The fashion house added that they wore Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello during the ceremony.

The two married in September 2018, and then one year later, they had another wedding ceremony in South Carolina with guests that included Usher, Kylie Jenner and others.

“My bride is 🔥,” Justin Bieber wrote in an Instagram with photos of their special day.

The singer was candid about married life in the years that followed, sharing that he thought getting married would “fix all my problems.”

“It just kind of was a reflection of, like, ‘You’re a bit of a hypocrite, man. Like, you want your wife to do something that you’re not doing.’ And it’s like, I mean, it’s hard sometimes to look in the mirror and really have to realize, ‘Man, maybe you’re not the person that you necessarily thought that you were.’ And, you know, that’s just the result of trauma and life circumstances,” he said on “The Ebro Show” in May 2022.

The couple has faced a range of health issues since tying the knot, from Hailey Bieber finding a small blood clot in her brain in 2022 to Justin Bieber being diagnosed with Ramsay Hunt syndrome.

More recently, the couple celebrated Justin Bieber turning 30 in March, with Hailey writing on Instagram that “words could never truly describe the beauty of who you are.”

In an interview with pastor Judah Smith from April 2024, Hailey Bieber said they wanted to have children at a young age.

“We always talked about wanting to be married and be young and have kids young,” Hailey Bieber said.

Source: USA Today

Washington — Making future military aid to Ukraine contingent on its participation in peace talks with Russia. Chinese nationals are prohibited from purchasing property within a 50-mile radius of US government structures. Filling the national security sector with supporters of Donald Trump.

One group attempting to prepare the framework for a second Trump administration if the former Republican president wins in November has released a new policy book articulating an “America First” national security strategy.

The book, which was shared with The Associated Press before its release on Thursday, is the America First Policy Institute’s newest endeavor. Like the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025,” the group aims to help Trump avoid the mistakes he made in 2016 when he entered the White House unprepared.

In addition to its policy activities, the institute’s transition project has been working on dozens of executive orders and a training program for prospective political appointees. Heritage has been developing a comprehensive personnel database and providing its policy manuals.

Both organizations emphasize their independence from Trump’s campaign, which has frequently made an effort to distance itself from such efforts by claiming that the only ideas the candidate supports are those that he has himself expressed.

Still, the book’s editor, Fred Fleitz, stated that he and retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who served as Trump’s acting national security adviser and wrote several of the chapters, have been in frequent contact with the former president, soliciting feedback and discussing topics such as Ukraine in depth.

We hope this is where he is. “We’re not speaking for him, but I believe he will approve,” said Fleitz, who formerly served as the National Security Council’s chief of staff.

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A Trump Affiliated Group Has Released A New National Security Book Outlining Prospective Second-Term Approaches.

He thinks the book will serve as “an intellectual foundation for the America First approach” to national security and be “easy to use.”

“It’s a grand strategy,” Kellogg continued. “You do not begin with the policies first. You start with the strategies first. And that’s what we did.”

The group portrays the current direction of US national security as a failure, blaming the foreign policy establishment for embracing an interventionist and “globalist” strategy at the expense of America’s national interests.

While lacking in specifics, the book provides guidelines for how a potential Trump administration should address foreign policy concerns such as Russia’s war against Ukraine. Trump has stated that if elected, he will resolve the problem before Inauguration Day in January but has yet to specify how.

The war chapter in the book focuses on how the conflict developed rather than how it was resolved. However, it states that any US military help should be subject to Ukraine’s participation in peace talks with Russia.

It forecasts that the Ukrainian army would gradually lose ground and warns against the US continuing “to send arms to a stalemate that Ukraine will eventually find difficult to win.” However, once a peace accord is reached, it states that the United States will continue to arm Ukraine as a deterrence to Russia.

The authors appear to support a framework in which Ukraine “would not be asked to relinquish the goal of regaining all its territory” but would agree to diplomacy “with the understanding that this would require a future diplomatic breakthrough, which probably will not occur before (Russian President Vladimir) Putin leaves office.”

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A Trump Affiliated Group Has Released A New National Security Book Outlining Prospective Second-Term Approaches.

It recognizes that Ukrainians “will have difficulty accepting a negotiated peace that does not return all of their territory or, at least for now, hold Russia accountable for the carnage it inflicted on Ukraine.” Their supporters will, too. However, as Donald Trump stated during the CNN town hall in 2023, ‘I want everyone to stop dying.’ That is our viewpoint as well. It’s a good first step.

The book blames Democratic President Joe Biden for the war and reiterates Trump’s argument that if he had been president, Putin would never have invaded. Its key argument in support of that assertion is that Putin regarded Trump as powerful and determined. Trump developed a close relationship with the Russian leader and hesitated to question him.

Most of the chapter outlines an, at times, inaccurate timeline of Biden’s management of the conflict.

Moving forward, it appears like Putin could be convinced to participate in peace talks if Biden and other NATO leaders offer to postpone Ukraine’s NATO membership for an extended time. It proposes that the United States develop a “long-term security architecture for Ukraine’s defense that focuses on bilateral security defense.” It needs to explain what this entails. It also proposes charges on Russian energy sales to fund Ukraine’s rehabilitation.

The book criticizes Trump’s 2016 transition operations, citing a general lack of preparation before Trump took office.

“The tumultuous transition of 2016/2017 did not serve President Trump and the nation well and slowed the advancement and implementation of his agenda,” the writers stated. For example, they point out that before the election, Democrat Hillary Clinton’s transition team submitted over 1,000 names for future security clearance. Trump’s team filed only 25.

The group claims to have identified over 1,200 national security-related roles that the future administration would need to fill and wants it to be prepared on Day 1 with Trump loyalists who support the “America First” strategy.

“It is not about retaliating against individuals or attempting to politicize official posts. “It’s about ensuring that government employees do their jobs while keeping politics out of it,” Fleitz added.

The book portrays China as the country’s most significant national security concern, eager to dethrone the United States as the world’s dominant force. It advocates a hardline policy that builds on methods taken under both the Trump and Biden administrations to render Beijing’s actions “largely irrelevant to American life.”

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A Trump Affiliated Group Has Released A New National Security Book Outlining Prospective Second-Term Approaches.

It raises economic concerns about China to national security ones and advocates a reciprocal strategy that would deny Beijing access to US markets in the same way that American enterprises have been denied access in China.

The book also calls for more stringent screening of cyber and digital enterprises owned by US rivals, particularly China, to ensure they are not collecting sensitive information. It also advises prohibiting Chinese people from purchasing property within a 50-mile radius of any US federal facility.

It advocates for visa restrictions on Chinese students seeking to study in the United States and the ban of TikTok and other Chinese apps due to worries about data privacy. Conversely, Trump has spoken out against legislation that would force TikTok to sell or ban access in the United States.

Analysts’ interpretations of what constitutes an “America First” policy frequently reflect the writers’ own interests.

Ellie Cohanim, a former Trump senior State Department ambassador in charge of monitoring and combatting antisemitism, sees “America First” as a shopping list for Israel’s military.

The United States should provide Israel with a squadron of “25 Lockheed Martin F-35s, one squadron of Boeing’s F-15 EX, and a squadron of Apache E attack helicopters,” Cohanim stated.

The United States should give Israel some of its billions of dollars in military funding in Israeli currency so that it can spend it at home, and Washington should press Arab states to foot the bill for Gaza reconstruction and accept Israel’s suspension of any political talks with the Palestinians pending an indefinite period of compulsory deradicalization for the Palestinian people, she wrote.

SOURCE – (AP)