Wanderlust

Tag: Human Interest

  • Princess Eugenie weds her beau at Windsor Castle

    Princess Eugenie married tequila executive Jack Brooksbank in a solemn ceremony at St. George’s Chapel on the grounds of Windsor Castle Friday.

    WINDSOR, England (AP) — Princess Eugenie married tequila executive Jack Brooksbank in a solemn ceremony at St. George’s Chapel on the grounds of Windsor Castle Friday.

    The 28-year-old bride, granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II, is ninth in line to the British throne. She wore a gown by British designers Peter Pilotto and Christopher De Vos and a diamond and emerald encrusted tiara.

    The queen and her husband, Prince Philip, attended the wedding, along with other senior royals.

    The couple got engaged in January when Brooksbank, 32, proposed during a holiday trip to Nicaragua in Central America. They had dated for seven years.

    Crowds gathered outside Windsor Castle ahead of Britain’s second royal wedding of the year on a gusty day that required early arrivals to hold onto their elegant hats as they crossed the manicured grounds.

    The queen will host a champagne luncheon for the newlyweds shortly after the ceremony.

    The couple married in the same venue used in May by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who is now known as the Duchess of Sussex. The royal standard was flying atop the complex Friday, indicating that the queen was in residence.

    Harry and Meghan are attending, along with Prince William and his wife Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge. Their 5-year-old son, Prince George, will be a page boy, and Princess Charlotte, 3, will be one of six bridesmaids.

    Eugenie, 28, works at a contemporary art gallery. Her sister, Princess Beatrice, served as maid of honor. They are the daughters of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, who are divorced but enjoy an amicable relationship.

    Eugenie told ITV, which broadcast the hour-long service in Britain, that she was both excited and a bit on edge.

    “It’s nerve-wracking and a bit scary and all the things that come with getting married, but at the end of the day you get to marry the person you love,” she said.

    The couple has invited 1,200 members of the public to come onto the castle grounds for a closer glimpse of proceedings. They also plan to take a carriage ride through parts of Windsor after the ceremony.

    ___

    Katz reported from London.

  • Melania Trump, first lady, blasted by media for wearing ‘colonial’ white pith helmet on Kenya safari

    First lady Melania Trump has come under attack by media outlets during her Kenya trip for wearing a white pith helmet described as a symbol of white colonial rule.”

    First lady Melania Trump has come under attack by media outlets during her Kenya trip for wearing a white pith helmet described as a symbol of white colonial rule.”

    The helmet, which she wore Friday during a safari in Nairobi, was blasted as a “common symbol of European colonial rule” by The New York Times, while CNN said it has “come to symbolize white rule.”

    The [U.K.] Guardian said the helmets “were worn by European explorers and imperial administrators in Africa, parts of Asia and the Middle East in the 19th century before being adopted by military officers, rapidly becoming a symbol of status — and oppression.”

    The first lady refused to take the bait, telling reporters Saturday that she had no comment on her wardrobe.

    “We just completed an amazing trip — we went to Ghana, we went to Malawi, we went to Kenya, here we are in Egypt,” she said as reported by NPR. “I want to talk about my trip and not what I wear. That’s very important.”

    The pith helmet Melania Trump wore during a Kenyan safari wasn’t her most glaring faux pas. But some see her choice of a symbol of European colonial rule as a big error on the global stage. https://t.co/509wb8PJxu

    — New York Times World (@nytimesworld) October 5, 2018

    US first lady Melania Trump’s latest white hat evokes a colonialist comparison https://t.co/gh4IQhq630pic.twitter.com/hN6hGfzxF8

    — CNN International (@cnni) October 5, 2018

    At least one person on social media said that white pith helmets were also worn by Kenyans, while the first lady’s defenders called the controversy ridiculous.

    To our friends across the sea, pith helmets are still (unless I am misinformed) part of the official uniform of Kenya Gov public administration officers. Nothing shocking (nor offensive) about a similar white white hat worn by guest at the Nairobi National Park yesterday. @FLOTUSpic.twitter.com/xSoZDycgLW

    — HENRY MUSANGI (@HMUSANGI) October 6, 2018

    Oh shut up you insufferable nitpicking whiners https://t.co/vI6F7F7A4i

    — John Cardillo (@johncardillo) October 5, 2018

  • Melania Trump visits ex-slave holding facility in Ghana

    Melania Trump is visiting a former slave holding facility on the coast of Ghana on the second day of her Africa tour.

    CAPE COAST, Ghana (AP) — Melania Trump is visiting a former slave holding facility on the coast of Ghana on the second day of her Africa tour.

    The U.S. first lady on Wednesday was touring Cape Coast Castle. The 17th-century facility in the seaside town of Cape Coast was built by the Swedes to trade in timber and gold but became a place where slaves were held until they could be shipped out through a “Door of No Return.”

    Mrs. Trump says she expects the visit to be “very emotional.”

    Then-President Barack Obama and his family toured the castle in 2009. Obama said it was a reminder of “the capacity of human beings to commit great evil.”

    Mrs. Trump is touring Africa on her first extended solo international trip as first lady. She has stops planned in Malawi, Kenya and Egypt.

  • Arthur Ashkin, Donna Strickland, Gerard Mourou win Nobel for work with lasers

    Three scientists from the United States, Canada and France won the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for work with lasers described as revolutionary and bringing science fiction into reality.

    STOCKHOLM (AP) — Three scientists from the United States, Canada and France won the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for work with lasers described as revolutionary and bringing science fiction into reality.

    One of them, Arthur Ashkin of Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, entered the Nobel record books by becoming the oldest laureate at age 96. Donna Strickland of the University of Waterloo in Canada is the first woman to have won a Nobel in three years and is only the third to have won for physics.

    Frenchman Gerard Mourou of the Ecole Polytechnique and University of Michigan shares have the prize’s 9-million-kronor ($1.01 million) with Strickland; Ashkin gets the other half.

    Sweden’s Royal Academy of Sciences, which chose the winners, said Ashkin’s development of “optical tweezers” that can grab tiny particles such as viruses without damaging them realized “an old dream of science fiction — using the radiation pressure of light to move physical objects.”

    The tweezers are “extremely important for measuring small forces on individual molecules, small objects, and this has been very interesting in biology, to understand how things like muscle tissue work, what are the molecule motors behind the muscle tissue,” said David Haviland of the academy’s Nobel committee.

    Strickland and Mourou helped develop short and intense laser pulses that have broad industrial and medical applications, including laser eye surgery. The academy said their 1985 article on the technique was “revolutionary.”

    Strickland’s award is the first to have gone to a woman in physics since 1963, when it was won by Maria Goeppert-Mayer; the only other one was Marie Curie in 1903.

    “Obviously we need to celebrate women physicists, because we’re out there. And hopefully in time it’ll start to move forward at a faster rate, maybe,” Strickland said in a phone call with the academy after the prize announcement.

    Michael Moloney, CEO of the American Institute of Physics, praised all the laureates and said “It is also a personal delight to see Dr. Strickland break the 55-year hiatus since a woman has been awarded a Nobel Prize in physics, making this year’s award all the more historic.”

    He credited the work of all three with “expanding what is possible at the extremes of time, space and forms of matter.”

    On Monday, American James Allison and Japan’s Tasuku Honjo won the Nobel medicine prize for groundbreaking work in fighting cancer with the body’s own immune system.

    The Nobel chemistry prize comes Wednesday, followed by the peace prize on Friday. The economics prize, which is not technically a Nobel, will be announced Oct. 8.

    ___

    Heintz reported from Moscow.

  • Melania Trump opens Africa tour with a wave and baby in arms

    Melania Trump opened her first big solo international trip as U.S. first lady on Tuesday with a wave, a smile and a baby in her arms, aiming to promote child welfare during a five-day tour of Africa.

    ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — Melania Trump opened her first big solo international trip as U.S. first lady on Tuesday with a wave, a smile and a baby in her arms, aiming to promote child welfare during a five-day tour of Africa.

    She arrived in the West African nation of Ghana after an overnight flight from Washington and quickly made her way to the Greater Accra Regional Hospital.

    The first lady saw how babies are weighed — they’re placed in sacks that are then hung from a hook attached to a scale. She also watched a nurse demonstrate how vitamins are administered to babies by mouth and toured the neonatal intensive care unit.

    Mrs. Trump also cradled an infant and declared the baby a “beautiful boy” as she handed him back to his mother.

    Mothers at the hospital for her visit received gifts of teddy bears nestled in white baby blankets, personally handed out by the first lady, according to her spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham. The items carried the logo of “Be Best,” the child well-being initiative Mrs. Trump launched last May.

    With the Africa visit, the first lady aims to take “Be Best” and its focus on opioid abuse and online behavior to an international audience.

    The first lady also had a private tea and gift exchange with her Ghanaian counterpart, Rebecca Akufo-Addo. They exchanged gifts: a Chippendale silver tray embossed with an image of the White House inside a leather case signed by “First Lady Melania Trump” for Akufo-Addo, and Kente cloth and artifacts for Mrs. Trump, according to Grisham.

    The first ladies met privately for about a half-hour at Jubilee House, Ghana’s presidential palace. The two first met last week in New York at a reception on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, where Mrs. Trump spoke about her upcoming trip.

    Mrs. Trump’s visit opened in low-key fashion. Several Ghanaians interviewed said they knew little about it.

    “Did you say President Trump’s wife just arrived in Accra?” street vendor Awo Yeboah told the AP. “l don’t think l have ever heard her name, Melania.” Other locals said they knew about the visit but didn’t know what Mrs. Trump was doing.

    Mrs. Trump landed in the capital of Accra on Tuesday morning after a more than 12-hour journey from Washington. She was welcomed at the airport with dancing and drumming, schoolchildren waving mini U.S. and Ghanaian flags and the gift of a flower bouquet.

    Akufo-Addo was at the airport to welcome her. Mrs. Trump also plans to visit Malawi, Kenya and Egypt.

  • Prince Charles to walk Meghan Markle down the aisle

    Kensington Palace says Prince Charles will walk Meghan Markle down the aisle at the royal wedding.

    WINDSOR, England (AP) — Kensington Palace says Prince Charles will walk Meghan Markle down the aisle at the royal wedding.

    The father of groom Prince Harry stepped in after Markle’s dad fell ill days before the wedding and was unable to fly to Britain.

    Markle appealed for people to give Thomas Markle “the space he needs to focus on his health” amid reports he had had a heart procedure.

    The palace said Friday that Markle’s future father-in-law, the heir to the British throne, would walk Markle down the aisle at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor on Saturday. The palace says he “is pleased to be able to welcome Ms. Markle to the Royal Family in this way.”

  • Windsor gears up for royal wedding, embraces Harry, Meghan

    Meghan Markle will have an heir to the British throne walk her down the aisle – and have her mother and friends on hand for support – when she marries Prince Harry at Windsor Castle.

    WINDSOR, England (AP) — Meghan Markle will have an heir to the British throne walk her down the aisle – and have her mother and friends on hand for support – when she marries Prince Harry at Windsor Castle.

    Friday’s announcement that Markle has asked her future father-in-law Prince Charles to offer a supporting elbow, stepping in for Markle’s father after he became ill, meant arrangements were almost complete for Saturday’s royal wedding.

    The event’s mix of royalty, celebrity, pomp and ceremony has drawn stratospheric levels of interest around the world and will be broadcast live to tens of millions.

    Kensington Palace said Prince Charles “is pleased to be able to welcome Ms. Markle to the royal family in this way” after Markle’s father Thomas was unable to attend due to illness.

    Thousands of well-wishers descended Friday on Windsor amid final preparations for the wedding, which has drawn royal fans and an international media throng to the castle town and royal residence 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of London.

    Union Jacks have been unfurled, security barriers and police patrols put into place and fans were already camping out to capture the prime viewing positions for Saturday’s royal carriage ride through the town.

    Harry and Prince William, his brother and best-man, delighted royal fans when they emerged from Windsor Castle late Friday afternoon to greet well-wishers.

    If Harry was feeling nervous, he didn’t show it. The smiling prince gave a thumb’s up and answered “Great, thank you” when asked how he was feeling on the eve of his wedding. The 33-year-old prince accepted a teddy bear from one well-wisher as he chatted to people from Britain, the United States, Canada and elsewhere.

    Tens of thousands of spectators, including many Americans who have come in support of the California-born Markle, are expected in Windsor to soak up the royal atmosphere. British police say they will be subject to airport-style security scanners and bag searches. Metal barriers have also been erected to stop vehicle attacks like the ones that killed several people on London and Westminster bridges last year.

    Sniffer dogs and mounted patrols are also out and about, and well-wishers have been asked not to throw confetti when the newlyweds ride through town in a horse-drawn carriage Saturday.

    “It poses a potential security risk and it’s a bit of a pain to clean up!” said Thames Valley Police.

    Buckingham Palace also announced that Queen Elizabeth II’s husband the Duke of Edinburgh will attend the royal wedding, just a few weeks after undergoing a hip replacement operation. Harry’s 96-year-old grandfather has largely retired from public duties and it had not been clear earlier whether he would be well enough to attend.

    Markle’s mother, Doria Ragland, flew to England from her California home earlier in the week and had tea Friday with the queen at Windsor Castle. It was her first meeting with a head of state within whom she’s about to share a family bond.

    On Thursday, Ragland dined with William’s family and a day earlier she met Charles and his wife Camilla.

    Ragland had been was the bookies’ favorite to escort the bride down the aisle, but Charles has a lifetime of experience in appearing at large-scale public events amid intense scrutiny.

    “I think some people will be disappointed – people who were looking forward to the historic moment of a woman walking her daughter down the aisle, and a woman of mixed race heritage from America. It would have made an historic shot,” said royal historian Robert Lacey.

    But, he added, “for Prince Charles, the future king, to walk a bride down the aisle, what more could Meghan dream of?”

    Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who will conduct the wedding ceremony, said Charles is “a very warm person and that he’s doing this is a sign of his love and concern and support. And I think it’s wonderful. It’s beautiful.”

    The archbishop also said Harry and Markle are “a very self-possessed couple” and the atmosphere in rehearsals has been “relaxed, laughing and enjoyable.”

    It’s not the first time a royal bride hasn’t been walked down the aisle by her father. The monarch’s sister, the late Princess Margaret, was walked down the aisle by Prince Philip because her father was dead. Queen Victoria walked two daughters down the aisle.

    Roseline Morris, 35-year-old fan from Basildon, England, noted that Charles hasn’t got a daughter himself.

    “He’s never going to get the chance to walk a daughter down the aisle, so this will be nice for him as well,” she said.

    Having the father of the groom escort the bride is yet another twist in a royal wedding that is proving to be different from many others.

    Master baker Claire Ptak said Friday that the royal wedding cake – a three-part layered lemon and elderflower cake – will have an “ethereal” taste and be presented in a non-traditional way.

    Markle will not have a maid of honor but there will be 10 young bridesmaids and page boys, including 4-year-old Prince George and 3-year-old Princess Charlotte, the elder children of William and his wife Kate.

    The 600 invited guests include members of the royal family and celebrity friends of Harry and Meghan’s including, it’s rumored, Elton John. Also invited are several of Markle’s co-stars from the legal TV drama “Suits.”

    The couple will be married by Welby in a Church of England ceremony, but the Most Rev. Michael Curry, the first black presiding bishop of the U.S. Episcopal Church, will also deliver a sermon.

    Curry – the son of an American civil rights activist and the descendant of African slaves – has spoken out for gay rights and plans to join a march on the White House next week to reject U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America first” stance.

    On Friday, Curry said seeing the couple up close, he saw “two real people who are obviously in love.”

    “When I see them, something in my heart leaps,” he said. “That’s why 2 billion people are watching them.”

    __

    Lawless reported from London. Danica Kirka contributed from London.

    ___

    For complete AP royal wedding coverage, visit https://apnews.com/tag/Royalweddings

  • Judge avoids ruling on law protecting Confederate monuments

    A judge has ruled a city in South Carolina can change the listing of names of soldiers killed in World War I on a private monument so they are no longer listed as “colored” or “white.”

    COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A judge has ruled a city in South Carolina can change the listing of names of soldiers killed in World War I on a private monument so they are no longer listed as “colored” or “white.”

    But Circuit Judge Frank Addy’s ruling Friday avoided a decision on whether South Carolina’s Heritage Act is constitutional. The law prevents changes on public monuments honoring the Confederacy and other historical events and figures without a two-thirds vote of the Legislature.

    Addy decided since the American Legion was a private organization, it could change the monument that stands on public land in downtown Greenwood. His ruling indicated public monuments on public land are different.

    Addy wrote he made his decision with full respect for the laudable objectives of the Heritage Act.

  • First lady returns to White House after kidney treatment

    Melania Trump is back at the White House after an extended hospitalization for a kidney procedure.

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Melania Trump is back at the White House after an extended hospitalization for a kidney procedure.

    The White House says the first lady returned to the White House on Saturday morning. She had been at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center near Washington since having an embolization procedure Monday for an unspecified kidney condition that the White House said was benign.

    President Donald Trump visited his 48-year-old wife during several of the evenings that she was in the hospital.

    The first lady said Wednesday on Twitter that she was “feeling great.” She thanked the Walter Reed staff and her well-wishers, and added that she was looking forward to going home.

  • President Trump calls reports of FBI informant on campaign ‘biggest political scandal’

    President Trump tweeted Friday that there was a report that an FBI informant was placed on his campaign.

    President Trump tweeted Friday that there was a report that an FBI informant was placed on his campaign.

    “Reports are there was indeed at least one FBI representative implanted, for political purposes, into my campaign for president. It took place very early on, and long before the phony Russia Hoax became a “hot” Fake News story. If true – all time biggest political scandal!” Mr. Trumptweeted.

    Mr. Giuliani addressed the New York Times report that there was a government informant that met with Trump campaign representatives Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. The former New York mayor said neither he nor the president knew for sure if there was an informant.

    “Here’s the issue that I really feel strongly about with this informant, if there is one. First of all, I don’t know for sure, nor does the president, if there really was. We’re told that,” he said on CNN earlier on Friday.

    He said the Times report correlates with what Mr. Trump’s legal team has been told off the record, but he added he’s still not sure if those reports are accurate.