London, September 13 (ANI): Debt-ridden Duchess of York Sarah, 49, may soon bag a presenter’s job on the hit lunchtime chat show ‘Loose Women’.
After her guest appearance on the programme earlier this month, Sarah is now desperate to have a permanent seat at the table anongside motormouths like Carol McGiffin and Denise Welch.
Fergie, as she is popularly known, is even said to have begged ITV1 bosses for the job.
“Sarah loved it so much that afterwards she asked to be a panellist,” the News of the World quoted part-time anchor Andrea McLean, 39, as saying.
“We would all jump at the chance. She would be absolutely ideal. We’d love to have her,” McLean added.
Sued by three firms over nearly 25,000 pounds in unpaid bills, Sarah can make up to 50,000 pounds a year if she gets a regular spot on the show.
An ITV1 insider said: “Fergie has a lot of interesting things to say and would be great for Loose Women.” (ANI)
Former Bush official says he was asked to raise threat level before 2004 polls
Washington, Aug.21 (ANI): The first secretary of homeland security, Tom Ridge, has asserted in a new book that he was pressured by top advisers to President George W. Bush to raise the national threat level just before the 2004 election in what he suspected was an effort to influence the vote.
Ridge said Attorney General John Ashcroft and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld pushed him to elevate the public threat posture but he refused.
According to the New York Times, Ridge now calls it a “dramatic and inconceivable” event that “proved most troublesome” and reinforced his decision to resign.
The provocative allegation provides fresh ammunition for critics who have accused the Bush administration of politicizing national security.
Keith M. Urbahn, a spokesman for Rumsfeld, said the defense secretary supported letting the public know if intelligence agencies believed there was a greater threat, and pointed to a variety of chilling Qaeda warnings in those days, including one tape vowing that “the streets of America will run red with blood.”
Ashcroft could not be reached for comment. But Mark Corallo, who was his spokesman at the Justice Department, dismissed Ridge’s account.
“Didn’t happen,” he said. “Now, would be a good time for Mr. Ridge to use his emergency duct tape.”
Ridge’s book, called “The Test of Our Times” and due out September 1 from Thomas Dunne Books, is the latest by a Bush adviser to disclose internal disagreements and establish distance from an unpopular administration.
In the book, Ridge complains that he was never invited to National Security Council meetings, that Rumsfeld would rarely meet with him and that the White House pressured him to include a justification for the Iraq war in a speech. (ANI)