Faith Hill is one of country music’s most beloved stars and a personal favorite of mine.
I love her unique voice and her emotional songs – but Hill is remarkable for yet another reason: she truly values family life.
Her long-time marriage to Tim McGraw proves that Faith has her heart in the right place and values the same things I do. The couple met in 1994 and have been married for 29 years now.
Together, the proud parents have raised three beautiful girls, Gracie Katherine, 25, Maggie Elizabeth, 24, and Audrey Caroline, 21.
The girls have all inherited their parents’ musical talents and are all strikingly similar to their mother if you ask me.
This was recently brought to the world’s attention when Maggie McGraw turned 24 and her father posted a picture of his daughter on social media.
Of course, many took the opportunity to congratulate Maggie when Tim posted the following message on her birthday:
“Your mom, sisters and I are so very proud of you. Your drive, work ethic and enthusiastic determination to make the world a better place inspires me every single day……. I love you Mags-a-Million!!!! ”Tim
wMany of the country star’s 3.3 million followers noticed that Maggie looks more and more like her famous mother with each passing year.
Their beautiful smiles are almost identical!
Faith sometimes posts photos of her middle daughter as well. When Maggie turned 222, she shared two photos on Instagram and a loving birthday message.
“Happy Birthday to our Maggie !!!!!! 22 years old today. “A throwback photo from our cross country road trip 4 years ago. I love you my sweet,” she wrote.
What a wonderful bond this mom and daughter clearly share!
Faith Hill obviously has a close and strong relationship with all her daughters – but it is clear that it’s evolving as her little girls are now growing up to be strong, independent women.
”As a parent, you do not want to stand in the way of their dreams,” Faith Hill told AOL a few years ago.
”You want to protect them; you want to make sure they aren’t disappointed … Sometimes, it’s better to let your children go through things on their own and let them experience it instead of saying, ‘Don’t do it this way, or you must do it this way.’”
Maggie McGraw, a copy of her mom? Maggie, 24, not only seems to have inherited her mother’s looks and smile – she also loves to perform on stage.
Maggie serves as a lead singer in her rock band ”Sister Supply” and the band has played at some university festivals around California.
According to Countryfancast, the 24-year-old also has a very adventurous personality – she loves activities such as sky diving, cliff jumping and swimming with sharks.
Maggie graduated with her undergraduate degree from Stanford University in California in 2020.
Now she’s headed back to Stanford to work on her master’s degree in sustainability science.
During the COVID-crisis, Maggie helped out with charity work in Nashville through the Feed The Front Line Live, a virtual benefit concert raising money to help local restaurants, people in need and front line workers.
Maggie was named vice president of the charitable organization’s chapter in Nashville and put her whole heart into the project.
“I think I grew up with a mentality that it’s kind of an obligation for you if you have more than other people, to give back,” Maggie, 21, told Us Weekly.
It is obvious that Maggie’s parents have inspired and passed on good values to their daughter. According to Maggie, her parents were the first people she told about her involvement in Feed The Front Line Live.
“It’s always been instilled in my conscience, but I think this is probably the first time I’ve truly acted on it, like independently outside from, like, high school and volunteering.”
It will be very exciting to follow Maggie and her sisters through their lives.
I’m sure they will succeed in whatever they set out to do and I hope they will stay happy and healthy. They are blessed to have two fantastic and caring parents and it’s clear that they have received the right values and attitude towards life.
What do you think? Is Maggie like her mother? Or maybe her dad? Feel free to share this article on social media!rote.
Queen Elizabeth’s death left the entire world in mourning. Though not everyone considers themselves pro-monarchy, the late Queen was beloved by most. She reigned for over 70 years, and has now finally reunited with her husband, Prince Philip.
Shortly after the Queen’s death at Balmoral, speculation regarding the cause of her death began to spread. One insider even claimed that the late Queen had bone cancer, though that has not been confirmed by Buckingham Palace.
Speaking with The Daily Beast, a close friend of Queen Elizabeth’s has now revealed fresh details about her last days.
After reigning for over 70 years, Queen Elizabeth died on September 8, 2022 aged 96.
After the State Funeral at Westminster Abbey, Queen Elizabeth’s coffin traveled through the streets of London to Wellington Arch in Procession.
Queen Elizabeth
From Wellington Arch, the coffin went to Windsor. Once there, the hearse continued in Procession to St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, via the Long Walk. At St. George’s Chapel, another funeral service was held.
The Choir of St George’s Chapel sang during the St George’s Chapel funeral service. Then, before the “final Hymn,” Queen Elizabeth’s imperial state crown, the Orb, and the Sceptre were removed from her coffin and placed on the altar.
Next, King Charles put his mother’s Company Camp Colour of the Grenadier Guards on her casket, before The Lord Chamberlain broke his Wand of Office and placed it down.
The guests sang God Save The King as Her Majesty’s coffin was lowered into the Royal Vault. Charles became visibly emotional, fighting back the tears. Later on Monday evening, a small, private burial service was held without cameras, attending only by the closest family members.
The Queen now rests in the King George VI Memorial Chapel at Windsor Castle, alongside her parents, her sister Princess Margaret, and her husband, Phillip.
After his passing, Philip’s coffin was placed in the royal vault below St. George’s Chapel. He was later relocated to be reunited with Elizabeth at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, where, some weeks after the funeral, people were once again invited to pay their respects.
Queen Elizabeth died of “old age”
As reported by AP, Queen Elizabeth’s funeral and lying-in-state cost Britain’s government an estimated $200 million. The funeral was the first state funeral in the UK since former Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s in 1965.
Before the funeral, hundreds of thousands of people visited London’s Westminster Hall to see Queen Elizabeth lying in state and pay their respects.
The costs were published as part of a written statement to Parliament.
“The government’s priorities were that these events ran smoothly and with the appropriate level of dignity, while at all times ensuring the safety and security of the public,” John Glen, chief secretary to the treasury, said in a statement.
For weeks after the funeral, circumstances surrounding Queen Elizabeth’s cause of death were kept a secret. The Daily Mail reported that a Scottish government department had been accused of being secretive and blocking legitimate attempts to obtain a copy of Her Majesty’s death certificate – this despite the fact many believed it should be a matter of public record.
“Despite MailOnline and other media outlets attempting to obtain the information from the National Records of Scotland (NRS), the public body has blocked its staff from providing any details relating to the Queen’s death on September 8,” the Daily Mail wrote.
In late September, the registered cause of death was released. Queen Elizabeth’s cause of death was listed as “old age,” with no further details added.
The National Records of Scotland’s Chief Executive, Paul Lowe, confirmed that her passing was registered in Aberdeenshire on September 16.
Harry and William didn’t make it in time
The document – signed by the Queen’s daughter, Princess Anne – states that Her Majesty passed away at 3.10 P.M. on September 8 at Balmoral Castle. Buckingham Palace announced Queen Elizabeth’s passing around three hours after she died.
King Charles and Camilla were at the Queen’s side when she passed. Unfortunately, none of Prince William, Kate Middleton, or Prince Harry made it to Balmoral to say their goodbyes in time before she died.
In an interview with 60 Minutes, Harry gave details about the tumultuous hours surrounding his grandmother’s passing. He claimed that he reached out to his brother William regarding traveling plans for Balmoral – but was not invited.
“I asked my brother — I said, ‘What are your plans? How are you and Kate getting up there?’ And then, a couple of hours later, you know, all of the family members that live within the Windsor and Ascot area were jumping on a plane together,” Harry told Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes.
Most of the flight to the Scottish estate, where he’d spend many Christmases and other holidays, he thought about the last moments he had spoken to his beloved grandmother.
Harry, via the BBC website, discovered that the Queen had passed away as he landed. Upon arrival at Balmoral, Princess Anne was the one who welcomed him.
“I walked into the hall and [Princess Anne] was there to greet me,” Harry told 60 Minutes. “And she asked me if I wanted to see her. I thought about it for about five seconds, thinking, ‘Is this a good idea?’ And I was, like, ‘You know what? You can do this. You need to say goodbye.’ So went upstairs, took my jacket off and walked in and just spent some time with her alone.”
Royal insider claimed Queen Elizabeth suffered from bone cancer
Harry continued: “She was in her bedroom. [She] was actually — I was really happy for her. Because she’d finished life. She’d completed life, and her husband [Prince Philip] was waiting for her. And the two of them are buried together.”
In his memoir, Harry wrote more about getting to say his last goodbyes to the Queen.
“I stayed in one place without moving, gazing at her for a long time, gathered strength and continued going forward,” Harry recalled in his book, adding that he whispered a very precious thing to her.
“I hoped she was happy and that she was with grandpa,” he whispered to the Queen, telling her how he “admired her for having carried out her functions to the end… the Jubilee, welcoming the new Prime Minister.”
Queen Elizabeth’s official cause of death is documented as old age, though as mentioned, one expert previously claimed that she had been suffering from bone cancer. In a serialization in the Daily Mail, royal author Gyles Brandreth wrote that the fact that she had myeloma – bone marrow cancer – explained the “tiredness and weight loss and those ‘mobility issues’ we were often told about during the last year or so of her life.”
He continued: “The most common symptom of myeloma is bone pain, especially in the pelvis and lower back, and multiple myeloma is a disease that often affects the elderly. Currently, there is no known cure, but treatment — including medicines to help regulate the immune system and drugs that help prevent the weakening of the bones — can reduce the severity of its symptoms and extend the patient’s survival by months or two to three years.”
Bone cancer can cause severe chronic pain and hinder a person from moving around, which fits Bradreth’s claims about the Queen having “episodic mobility problems.”
“No one could see she was having to use a wheelchair”
According to Express sources, the Queen withdrew from more public events in her final year because of mobility issues and increased pain.
The Daily Beast reported that although the Queen was never photographed using a wheelchair, she used one to get around in private.
According to royal expert and author Robert Joobson, the Platinum Jubilee planning at Buckingham Palace was extraordinary.
“On her insistence, a military-style exercise was put in place so that no one could see she was having to use a wheelchair,” Jobson wrote. “In considerable discomfort, Her Majesty was taken by wheelchair to the helicopter pad at Windsor.”
“At the Palace, she was wheeled right up to the balcony doors, then helped to her feet so that she could stand – with the aid of a walking stick – alongside Charles and Camilla, plus William and his family.”
“After a firework display, the Queen smiled with delight. It was her last salute to her people,” he concluded.
Palace aides were said to have been instructed not to let anyone see the Queen in a wheelchair, most notably because the Queen remembered a “haunting image” of her sister, Princess Margaret, in a wheelchair taken just months before her passing.
Queen Elizabeth was “easily confused” and had a hard time to see in her final days
However, a friend of Queen Elizabeth has now decided to speak out about the late monarch’s final years, revealing that she was in “a lot of pain.”
Moreover, the source revealed that the Queen’s sight and hearing had deteriorated considerably in the weeks leading to her death.
Although Queen Elizabeth appointed Liz Truss as Prime Minister just days before her death, a friend concludes that the monarch also had difficulty concentrating for an extended period and “was easily confused.”
“For the last years of her life, certainly from when her husband died [in April 2021], the Queen was in a lot of pain,” the source close to the late Queen’s explained:
“In the final months, of course, it got very much worse; by the time of the Platinum Jubilee, she couldn’t see very much, she couldn’t hear very much, and she was easily confused,” the friend of Queen Elizabeth added.
“She barely moved from her apartments in Windsor Castle. Appearing on the balcony at Windsor Castle for the Jubilee required a titanic effort.”
More people have died in connection to a listeria outbreak linked to deli meats.
The CDC reported six new deaths in an update on Aug. 28, bringing the total to nine people dead. The update also noted 14 more illnesses since the last update on Aug. 8.
The new total of 57 reported cases of listeria have been in 18 states: Arizona, New Mexico, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Montana, Indiana, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts. The actual number of people who became ill is likely higher and other states may be affected, as the CDC noted that not everyone would have sought medical treatment.
All 57 people were hospitalized, including one pregnant person, who recovered. The CDC interviewed 44 of the impacted people and they reported “eating a variety of meats sliced at deli counters.” A portion of those people reported eating Boar’s Head brand.
The outbreak was originally traced back to Boar’s Head products after the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) identified listeria in a liverwurst sample from a store in the Baltimore area. The agency later confirmed that the listeria found in the product matched the strain causing the outbreak.
An official statement from Boar’s Head calls for people who purchased recalled items to discard the product or return them at the store purchased for a refund. The recalled products have been removed from stores.
Symptoms typically include fever and flu-like reactions, such as muscle aches and fatigue, according to the CDC. Young children and elderly people are at a higher risk of becoming severely sick if they contract listeria, as are immunocompromised and pregnant people.
After a rough couple of weeks, I’d been looking forward to a fun road trip with my friends because I was under the mistaken impression that I was capable of having a good time. It’s okay, though. Sometimes, to get out of a funk, you need the healthy reminder that nothing matters in the grand scheme of things. It’s like when you’re worrying about an exam and then you find out your family’s new tutor is an imposter and your brother doesn’t actually need an art therapist and the house lights aren’t motion-detecting and, suddenly, you stop worrying about the exam. Foolproof.
My friends and I road-tripped from Austin to New Orleans for Mardi Gras weekend, deciding to visit the infamous Bourbon Street just hours after we’d unloaded into our AirBnB. NOLA has an open container law, meaning you can drink alcohol on the streets. So in the left pocket of my utility jacket, I stuffed two cans of Angry Orchard, and in my right, a third can along with my phone. I asked my friend to bring a bottle of water for the seven of us, because priorities.
Bourbon Street was littered with empty bottles, crumpled flyers, unidentified liquids, and several empty phone cases and ID’s. Drunk people teetered into and away from each other like the crowd was executing a poorly coordinated wave. We waved excitedly upward at people tossing out purple, green, and gold beads from the balconies above. A couple people on the streets, likely taking pity on me, draped some around my neck.
Friend, to Balcony Man: Can we just have one??
Balcony Man: *gestures that we should flash him*
Friend: *gestures to us* But we have nothing!
In the thick of the crowd, I suddenly felt my jacket lighten, and I reached for my phone. It wasn’t there. I saw an iPhone on the ground, but it turned out to be some other lucky sod’s.
Me: My phone, worth hundreds of dollars, and everything in my phone wallet for like $20 worth of pearly beads.
A man barreled into me, and I found myself on the ground, disoriented. (In hindsight, I realize someone else might’ve been trying to steal my phone only to find I had already been robbed, which I find kind of funny. If not that night, my phone would’ve been stolen at some point that weekend anyway.)
Other friends accompanied me to retrace our steps—considering we’d only gone to the bathroom in one bar, was less than a block—just to humor me. It was definitely gone. The one person who I share my location with said it had gone off the grid. The thief had immediately turned it off.
Shamefully, we returned to our AirBnB only to find the door open and the hallway mirror gone. I made a beeline for my room to find my laptop not in my suitcase. The collective of seven incapacitated brains immediately concluded that someone, ignoring all the other electronics left in the open, had robbed us. Two minutes later, we remembered that there were two other people living with us who’d probably arrived later than we had and (inexplicably) decided to nab the mirror for their room. I then found my laptop under the covers. It was all too much for my heart.
In the living room at 2 or 3 AM, mind still fuzzy from the Angry Orchard and still processing the grief from losing my phone, I struggled with the unresponsive AirBnB WiFi to salvage what I could of the situation. I gathered info to apply for another driver’s license, deactivated my student ID, and researched credit freezes. I emailed my roommate, as my apartment key had also been in my phone case. I disabled the phone’s IMEI, rendering core functions unusable, because, as a rule, no one gets to capitalize on my misfortune except for me.
What really got me, though, was the two-factor authentication. In trying to find and disable my iPhone, I tried to get onto my iCloud only to find it locked. We’ve texted you a verification code, it said.
The more feature shrinkage, the less impressed I am.
I would’ve thrown the phone I was calling my mom on across the room if it not for the fact that it wasn’t mine, because, remember, I DIDN’T HAVE A PHONE.
The next day was a causal chain of unfortunate events as I discovered, one by one, new hits to my quality of life. Two-factor authentication, especially when there was only an option to include a recovery phone and not an email, locked me out of Venmo, (I suppose conveniently) preventing me from paying my friends back temporarily.
I was also locked out of my email when trying to print a temporary ID. (Thankfully, I’d already sent the document to my friends. If there was going to be identity theft, I said, might as well make it a party.) The temp license, which was just a piece of paper that I could’ve made on Word, looked fake.
Me: It’s okay. Clean slate. If bars don’t let me in, I’ll just hang out on the streets.
Friends: *look mildly concerned*
Me: I mean, what else could they take from me? I have nothing.
Because of course I went back to Bourbon the next night, and of course spending that time with friends made for one of the best nights of my life—that wasn’t surprising. What I hadn’t expected was what I was told back in Austin at T-Mobile.
Me: I was out of town this weekend and got my phone stolen. Could I get a new SIM card to put in my friend’s old phone?
T-Mobile rep: You know, I’ve been having people come in for this all day.
Me: The devil works hard, but the phone thieves at Mardi Gras work harder.
T-Mobile rep: I don’t know what people think they can do, stealing phones, now that you can’t really get beyond the lock screen anymore.
I sat at one of the tables to wait as the iPhone restored my iCloud backup. Not five minutes later, a man walked in.
Man: I was out of town this weekend and got my phone stolen. Could I get a new SIM card to put in my friend’s old phone?
Same situation, I assumed, except unlike me this man hadn’t brought his passport as ID. He desperately tried calling his brother, who was at work and/or an asshole. Encountering another victim of this prolific serial phone thief, I felt, briefly, validated. I’ve realized, for times of desolation, maybe what we all really need is not love and chocolates but the knowledge that someone out there shares your specific misery and you’re faring better than he is.
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Former U.S. presidents are assigned Secret Service protection for life
Mark Gollom · CBC News · Posted: Apr 16, 2023 1:00 AM PDT | Last Updated: April 17, 2023
The U.S. Secret Service has offered lifetime protection to former presidents for more than 50 years. But none of their protectees has been quite like former president — and current candidate — Donald Trump. (Alex Brandon/The Associated Press)
The legal woes of Donald Trump have cast a new light on the role of those federal agents assigned to protect him and other former presidents for the rest of their lives: the U.S. Secret Service.
There they were, accompanying the 45th president as he made his way into a Manhattan courthouse earlier this month to be fingerprinted and arraigned on 34 felony counts.
Meanwhile, current and former officers assigned to Trump are part of another investigation of the former president, reportedly having to testify at a Washington, D.C., grand jury as part of the investigation into classified documents seized at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
All this, along with other potential cases, including his involvement with the Jan. 6 riots, and accusations of 2020 election interference in Georgia, at least raise the possibility that Trump could be convicted, and perhaps, incarcerated.
CBC News looks at the role of the U.S. Secret Service in protecting former presidents, the challenges of Trump, and whether they would accompany him if he were sent to prison.
When did protection for presidents begin?
Although the U.S. Secret Service was founded in 1865 — created to combat counterfeiting of U.S. currency after the Civil War, according to the Secret Service website — it began protecting presidents in 1901 after the assassination of president William McKinley in Buffalo, N.Y.
The protection for sitting presidents, which remains today and can’t be rejected, also extends to their spouses and immediate family
But in 1958, the Former Presidents Act was passed which, beginning 1965, would provide for a lifetime of protection for former presidents, their spouses and their children, up to the age of 15. (Protection of a spouse would terminate in the event of remarriage).
There have, however, been some tweaks throughout the years.
Even though the adult children of presidents are supposed to lose their protective detail when the president leaves office, both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have signed directives authorizing the Secret Service to provide a period of extended protection for their children, according to CBS News.
Then-president George W. Bush is followed by Secret Service agents and his limousine as he walks back to Air Force One in 2008. When Bush left office, he had dozens of Secret Service agents still protecting him because of potential threats. (Charles Dharapak/The Associated Press)
As for the number of agents assigned to a former president, that really depends on potential threats and how long they’ve been out of office.
“Even a former president could be a goal of terrorist,” said Ronald Kessler, author of In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes With Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect.
“They can hold them hostage for example.”
Kessler said that when George W. Bush left office, the threat level was such that he had around 75 officers protecting him and his wife Laura to cover shifts around the clock.
“Typically with former presidents who have left office recently, there would be four agents with him when he goes out,” he said.
“And then, of course, it’s protection 24 hours a day. So you need three shifts and days off. And so that adds up in terms of agents.”
Although the security detail may be less intense once the president has left office, there are still advanced checks of public areas to be visited.
“If he’s going to go to a restaurant, they will go there first and check on the employees and check on their backgrounds to see if anybody has convictions for anything violent,” Kessler said. “Let’s say they’re going to a convention or something like that, they’ll definitely check the convention hall.They’ll have bomb sniffing dogs go around.”
Was the lifetime coverage suspended?
Yes, during the Clinton administration in 1994, in an effort to cut costs, the U.S. Congress changed the lifetime protection of former presidents to just a 10-year limit.
“Just a feeling that it wasn’t necessary, that former presidents would not be a target,” Kessler said.
Then-president Barack Obama, with first lady Michelle Obama and daughter Sasha, heads back to the White House accompanied by Secret Service officers after service at St. John’s Church in Washington in 2012. (Carolyn Kaster/The Associated Press)
But with the Former Presidents Protection Act of 2012, Barack Obama reinstated the lifetime protection.
“The world has changed dramatically since the 9/11 terrorist attacks,” said Republican Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas during House debate on the bill, according to a CBS News report at the time.
“We must make sure that the safety and security of our former chief executives is not jeopardized,” said Smith.
Not everyone agreed. North Carolina Republican Rep. Howard Coble said that former presidents can carve out a pretty lucrative career and should pay for the security themselves.
Has any president rejected protection?
Although current holders of the office can’t refuse Secret Service protection, former presidents do have that option.
In 1985, former president Richard Nixon cancelled his lifetime protection, reportedly to save the government money. He then hired his own private guards.
That made him the first, and so far only, former president to cancel Secret Service protection.
How does protection for Trump differ from other former presidents?
Trump, says Miller, has been an outlier in the history of the Secret Service because not only is he a former president, but a current candidate for president. (Presidential candidates are also afforded protection).
“[That] would add some different dynamics because he’ll be going from site to site to site to site,” he said.
“You look at George W. Bush, he went to the ranch, his dad went to Kennebunkport, and they lived relatively obscure lives from that point,” Miller said. “That’s not the case with former president Trump.”
As for their role when Trump was being indicted, “the service was likely with him every step of the way,” Miller said.
“You do not allow anyone to assume the [protection] of the Secret Service protectee other than the Secret Service.”
So what if Trump goes to prison?
A number of news stories have raised the question about whether Trump would be accompanied by some kind of Secret Service detail if he ends up incarcerated.
“If he went to the jail, they would definitely be outside the cellblock guarding him,” Kessler said. “Because otherwise it’s useless. It’s not going to do any good being out in the corridor or somewhere else.”
In a column for ABC News, former Secret Service agent Donald J. Mihalek said the question about how protection would work if a former president were to go to jail has a clear answer.
“Simply, the law mandates it and the Secret Service would have to provide protection, even in jail, as only the protectee may end it,” he wrote.
But Miller said that would be “exceptionally problematic” for the Secret Service and create a whole lot of challenges.
“And quite frankly, I don’t think there would ever be a scenario where he would be placed in a jail with other people,” he said. “That would be problematic across the spectrum.”
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