Entertainment

Prince Charles rejects claim in book he queried skin tone of Harry and Meghan’s child

Prince Charles’s spokesman on Monday rejected a claim made in a book that the heir to the British throne had questioned what the skin tone of Prince Harry and Meghan’s child would be.
In the book, “Brothers And Wives: Inside The Private Lives of William, Kate, Harry and Meghan,” author Christopher Andersen says Charles asked what the “complexion” of the child would be.

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“This is fiction and not worth further comment,” Charles’s spokesman told reporters in Barbados, where Charles will take part in celebrations marking the island’s move to a republic.
According to the Page Six celebrity news website, the book relates an alleged conversation between Charles and his wife Camilla. On the morning of Harry and Meghan’s 2017 engagement, Charles said: “I wonder what the children will look like?”
Camilla was apparently “somewhat taken aback” and replied: “Well, absolutely gorgeous, I’m certain,” Page Six said.
The book said Charles, lowering his voice, asked: “I mean, what do you think their children’s complexion might be?”
The book, due for release on Tuesday, stops short of claiming that Charles is the unidentified “senior royal” who Meghan in a March interview with Oprah Winfrey accused of raising concerns about how dark their son’s skin might be.
Meghan, whose mother is Black and father is white, said her son Archie had been denied the title of prince because there were concerns within the royal family “about how dark his skin might be.”
After the Oprah interview, the Buckingham Palace said the issues raised, particularly of race, were concerning, taken very seriously and would be addressed by the family privately.
Andersen could not immediately be reached for comment.

Entertainment

Explaining the PGA Tour and LIV Golf’s merger

The combination of the PGA Tour and rival LIV circuit is an intriguing merger, putting an end to a long-term rivalry between Saudi Arabia’s LIV and the nonprofit PGA Tour.

WHAT IS THE DEAL PRICE?

The two golf tournament organizers agreed to the merger without pinning down financial terms, in a bid to end a long-running legal dispute. LIV had filed an antitrust lawsuit in the United States seeking punitive damages against the PGA Tour for its “tortious interference” with contracts with golfers. PGA Tour had countersued, making similar claims.

PGA Tour and LIV have now signed a framework agreement that calls for investment banks M Klein & Co. and Allen & Co. to carry out a valuation analysis of the assets of LIV and PGA Tour, respectively. It is not clear how the two sides would proceed if disagreements arise over the valuations.

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WHO WILL OWN THE COMBINED COMPANY?

A new company will be created that will be majority-owned by the existing PGA Tour, which is a nonprofit. The new company, however, will operate for profit and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), which currently owns more than 90% of LIV, will take a large minority stake in the combined entity. The exact stake that PIF will assume in the new company will depend on how much it will invest — an amount expected to be in the billions of dollars. PGA Tour and PIF will negotiate how much money the new company should start off with.

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Blind mystic who predicted ISIS, COVID-19 says nuclear disaster impending in 2023

The famous mystic Baba Vanga, who reportedly predicted the 9/11 attacks, the existence of ISIS and COVID-19, has reportedly foreseen a nuclear disaster by the end of 2023.

Also known as the Nostradamus of the Balkans, the blind woman died in 1996. Before her passing, she has predicted various world events, some of which have come true, including the Fukushima nuclear spill, according to a New York Post report.

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The latest prediction claimed by her followers foresees a “devastating nuclear disaster” that would cause “toxic clouds to settle over Asia.”

In addition, Vanga also reportedly predicted “a powerful solar storm that will rock the climate in 2023” and a “biological weapon will be used by a superpower in 2023, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths,” according to the same report.

Some have supposedly interpreted her words to mean that a solar tsunami is imminent, which could result in major technology failure. Usually, minor storms of this kind occur frequently without a problem.

Vanga also predicted that natural pregnancies would be banned and babies would be grown in labs in 2023. She reportedly claimed that world leaders would choose who is born, and parents would be able to customize their offspring’s traits and appearance.

Vangeliya Pandeva Gushterova reportedly lost her eyesight during a dust storm at the age of 12 in Romania. Her followers claim that she received her powers during this time.

As for her 9/11 terrorist attack predictions, her exact words, as the New York Post recounted, were: “The American brethren will fall after being attacked by the steel birds.”

“The wolves will be howling in a bush, and innocent blood will be gushing.”

While many of Vanga’s predictions came true based on inference of the claim, some predictions, such as a nuclear war between 2010 and 2014 and the end of Europe in 2016, when Brexit took place, did not come true.

There were also claims that the 45th US President, Donald Trump, would face a crisis that would “bring the country down.”

Some unverified predictions include the presidency of Barack Obama, the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the death of Princess Diana.

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Innovative solution: Nigerian fourth-grader’s education funded by recycling waste

Nigerian fourth-grader Fawas Adeosun often used to get sent home from school through the gritty streets of Lagos because his mother, Fatimoh, had not paid his fees, until he enrolled in a different school offering a novel solution.

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Elizabeth Samuel, 37, a parent of a student of My Dream Stead, a low-cost school that accepts recyclable waste as payment, arranges used plastic bottles into a sack in her home in Ajegunle, Lagos, Nigeria May 19, 2023. (REUTERS)

My Dream Stead school, in the sprawling, impoverished Ajegunle neighborhood where the Adeosuns live, is one of 40 low-cost schools in Nigeria’s commercial capital that accept recyclable waste as payment.

A recyclable waste collector weighs a sack of plastic containers submitted by Fatimoh Adeosun, a parent of a student of My Dream Stead, a low-cost school that accepts recyclable waste as payment, in Ajegunle, Lagos, Nigeria May 19, 2023. (REUTERS)

For the past four years, a local environmental organization called African Cleanup Initiative has been collecting bottles, cans, drink cartons and plastic containers brought into the schools by parents and selling them to recyclers.

Elizabeth Samuel, 37, a parent of a student of My Dream Stead, a low-cost school that accepts recyclable wastes as payment, carries sacks of plastic waste for submission in Ajegunle, Lagos, Nigeria May 19, 2023. (REUTERS)

The proceeds of the sales pay for teacher salaries, children’s uniforms, books and pens, among other expenses.

The scheme aims to reduce the number of children out of school as well as the amount of trash on the streets of Lagos, said Alexander Akhigbe, founder of the environmental group.

Students attend classes at My Dream Stead, a low-cost school that accepts recyclable waste as payment, in Ajegunle, Lagos, Nigeria May 19, 2023. (REUTERS)

Tuition fees at My Dream Stead stand at $130 per year and the school is expanding into a second apartment block to accommodate its 120 students. Only seven children were enrolled when it opened in 2019.

Fatimoh Adeosun, 48, a parent of a student of My Dream Stead, a low-cost school that accepts recyclable wastes as payment, sorts plastic waste for submission, in Ajegunle, Lagos, Nigeria May 19, 2023. (REUTERS)

Some mornings, Fatimoh and Fawas walk to the school together with bulging sacks of trash over their shoulders. The waste is weighed on school premises and its sales value added to Fawas’ account.

“Sometimes if he wants to buy sportswear, the school will tell me the amount I need to bring,” said Fatimoh, a 48-year-old hairdresser who cares for six children on her own.

Providing for Fawas, the youngest, has been particularly difficult since she was forced to vacate the room she used as a salon in 2018.

“When I discovered that they could collect the plastics from me to keep my child in school, it made my burden lighter,” she said as she scoured bins on the streets for recyclables on her way back from the school.

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