Paul Mescal, Connie Nielsen and Denzel Washington join director Ridley Scott and King Charles III on the Royal Film Performance of “Gladiator II” on the Odeon Luxe in Leicester Square on November 13, 2024.

A number of weeks after famed editor and royal expert Tina Brown called out Meghan Markle for her “worst judgment in the world” and alluded to the failures of her post-royal experiment with Prince Harry, she is popping her critical eye to Prince William.

Brown, who was friends with the prince's late mother Diana and wrote an authoritative biography about her, wrote this week that William doesn't make good decisions either, particularly in the case of protecting the longer term of the British monarchy will rule at some point.

Brown, the highly influential editor of Vanity Fair, the New Yorker and the Daily Beast, also criticized Williams' recent “boastful” comments concerning the way forward for the monarchy at the top of his trip to South Africa for the Earthshot Prize.

When he becomes king after the death of his father, Charles III, William said he would do things in another way, “perhaps a smaller 'r' in royal.” The Guardian reported. He also discussed his plans for a more caring monarchy, adding “some empathy as well because I really care about what I do.”

“It helps make an impact on people’s lives,” said William, who leads initiatives to cut back homelessness within the UK and climate change globally. “And I think we could use more compassionate leadership around the world.”

To Brown, a few of Williams' comments looked as if it would devalue his father's accomplishments, she explained in an essay for her recent son Fresh hell substack. His comments also sounded tone-deaf given a current situation Sunday Times report about how his ancient duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster and his father's are value a “staggering” $2.2 billion and are making a living by charging British government agencies to be used of the land.

Brown said the Prince of Wales sounded “like a performative pinhead” and explained how she misses the presence of his younger, estranged brother Harry within the royal solid.

“In happier years, it was the irreverent Harry (or Harold, as William sadly used to call him) who could tease and put the Prince of Wales in his place,” Brown wrote. She also suggested that William is surrounded by yes men, individuals who “lick him up and down all day,” to make use of Kara Swisher's inimitable phrase about those that live in a gilded bubble.

But Brown said it was worrying King Charles III. to see that it looked “old and desolate”. The 75-year-old monarch also underwent cancer treatment last yr and attended the ceremony without his wife, Queen Camilla, who was reportedly affected by a chest infection.

Brown said it was inconceivable to look at the coverage and never consider the late Queen Elizabeth II, who viewed the annual ceremony as “the most sacred and essential of her royal duties.” Brown continued, “For Elizabeth, military service was anything but an ornamental necessity.”

Because of this, Brown said, there was “a gaping Harry-shaped hole in the depleted royal cast” on the ceremony. She noted that Harry is a veteran of two military tours in Afghanistan and the founding father of the Invictus Games, the nonprofit organization that “brings hope to injured vets through competitive sporting events.”

But the Duke of Sussex was stripped of his military honors after he and Meghan made a decisive exit from royal life and settled within the United States in 2020 with the concept of ​​becoming wealthy and powerful Hollywood media moguls and global thought leaders. Harry and Meghan became much more estranged from his relatives after he publicly criticized the royal family particularly, accusing it of racism, cruelty, indifference and dysfunction.

But despite all that, Brown said Harry “certainly deserves a place on the balcony” and he or she argued that the British nation “needs his human touch, and so does his ailing father.”

William recently admitted that the past yr had been “brutal” with each his wife and father battling a life-threatening illness. But the prince who “could credibly lighten the load is still in Montecito,” Brown said.

Then Brown poses the perennial query to royal fans and critics: Could things change? Could Harry be reconciling along with his father and even his brother, who’s reportedly particularly offended concerning the swipes Harry made against Catherine in his memoir Spare?

“Enough with the feuds,” Brown said. “Families, including this one, have to stick together.”

“William, whatever his lingering resentment may be against Harry for his self-indulgent broadsides in Spare, he should give it up now and allow his father to give Harry something to do,” Brown continued. Harry's involvement with the monarchy has change into increasingly vital “in an isolationist Trump world”, which Brown said means the UK must “move closer to Europe” and maintain its ties with the Commonwealth.

“William and Kate fear foreign travel, which will take the princess away from the children and interfere with what William calls (to the annoyance of his advisers) his 'me time,'” Brown said. “So offload the smaller but important red carpet trips to the Sussexes, who after five years in the wilderness would export some modern royal flair, particularly to former colonial trouble spots.”

In a podcast interview just a few weeks ago, Brown noted that Harry never really had any skilled training, apart from his years within the British Army. But in an interview with The Ankler's Janice Min, she praised Harry for being good at traveling the world, playing the role of the prince and supporting his favorite causes. On the recent “faux royal tours” he has taken with or without Meghan, he’s “charming, he's funny, he's sweet, he's authentic again,” Brown said.

On the opposite hand, in the identical interview, Brown expressed skepticism about whether the British public would welcome his American wife back right into a royal role. Brown explained the explanation why Meghan has change into unpopular with the vast majority of Brits. They feel that the previous American television actor has taken Harry away from them.

“He’s the lamb to the slaughter in this situation,” Brown said. “I mean, he was terribly impressed with Meghan. He thought she knew everything. She convinced him that she was the smart Hollywood wheel-dealer who would come in and make them stars and so on. And he just followed her blindly like a child.”

Harry's popularity in Britain actually fell after he left his home country, and in line with various polls, he used interviews and “spare” to criticize his family.

But Brown still predicted that Harry “could make a comeback.” Finally, she said: “He will always be Prince Harry.” He will all the time be the grandson of the Queen and the son of Diana. You can’t take that away from him, irrespective of what.”

Brown said the British people could be joyful to have Harry back, but only “if he came back alone.”

Originally published: November 13, 2024 at 11:45 am PST

Prince Harry turned 40 on Sunday removed from the family from whom he’s estranged, however the royals sent him birthday wishes despite their ongoing rift.

“We wish the Duke of Sussex a happy 40th birthday today!” was posted on the royal family’s official social media accounts, complete with birthday cake emoji and a photo of a smiling Prince Harry.

It was the first public birthday message Harry received from the royal family's official account since 2021. The royal family accounts are managed by King Charles' office at Buckingham Palace.

His brother and sister-in-law, Prince William and Princess Kate Middleton, echoed the message by sharing the royal family’s post on X, saying: “We wish you all the best for your 40th birthday to the Duke of Sussex!” from the official account of the Prince and Princess of Wales.

Some observers of the royal family viewed the messages as Olive branchso People. Birthdays are often only publicly acknowledged by working royals. Harry and wife Meghan Markle resigned from his royal duties in 2020 And relocated to the USAwhere they raise their three children in California.

As People reported, Harry celebrated privately with friends and family in Montecito and plans to continue celebrating abroad with close friends.

The couple have since spoken very openly about the treatment they felt they were subjected to as senior, working royals, and expressed their concerns in a candid interview with Oprah WinfreyHarry also wrote extensively about his relationships and family in his memoirs “Spare”, reveal more internal Family business and saucy details.

Now he may be turning his attention from the past to the future.

“He is in a a form of cross“, royal watcher and writer Sally Bedell Smith told the Associated Press. “And he doesn't seem to have any idea how he wants to proceed.”

According to BBC News, he was optimistic just before his big birthday.

“No matter how old I’m, my Mission is to proceed to point out and do good on the planet,” he told BBC News.

With News Wire Services

Originally published: September 17, 2024 at 11:32 am

Prince Harry or “well-informed sources” near him are fighting back against a sensational report over the weekend that portrayed him as so lonely and aimless within the United States that he’s in search of a technique to reconcile along with his father, King Charles III, and return to work for the royal family.

Several sources near the Duke of Sussex in California stressed to reporters that the British Telegraph that he shouldn’t be have a midlife crisis he turns 40 on September 15. Instead, he’s “happy” in his marriage to Meghan Markle and “settled” in Montecito. Harry also has a “fantastic” recent circle of friends within the United States and a number of other promising philanthropic and skilled projects within the pipeline, the sources said.

Harry subsequently has “no interest” in resuming his royal duties within the United Kingdom and is concentrating exclusively on his future within the United States, it said.

Another group of sources told the Mail on Sunday that Harry is “turning away from all sorts of Hollywood PR people and seeking advice from his old friends and colleagues”.

These old friends and former royal advisers include people he reportedly lost touch with after he and Meghan quit their royal duties amid a falling out in 2020 and moved to the United States to hunt financial independence and lucrative careers as media moguls, entrepreneurs, philanthropists and global thought leaders.

Some of Harry's longtime British friends were reportedly repulsed by the best way he and Meghan tried to capitalize on their grievances against the royal family. Harry particularly disillusioned some through the use of his 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey or his 2023 best-selling memoir, “Spare,” to disclose family secrets and claim that certain relations were cold, dysfunctional or involved in various types of bullying, scheming and even racism – or “unconscious bias,” as Harry later backtracked.

The Mail on Sunday reported that Harry's overtures to his old friends and colleagues are the primary stage of a technique to “rehabilitate” him. The strategy would ultimately involve Harry spending more time within the UK to repair his relationship along with his father, who’s undergoing cancer treatment, and possibly initiate a partial return to royal circles. Some of those friends have even dubbed the trouble “Operation Bring Harry in from the Cold.”

Harry, alternatively, “is obviously trying to change something because he thinks, 'I need to do something different because what I'm doing is obviously not working,'” a source told the Mail on Sunday. “In short, he's rethinking his approach.”

What is “not working” is that Harry and Meghan lost their multimillion-dollar deal to provide a series of podcasts for Spotify and that a report emerged last month that Netflix is not going to renew its spectacular five-year, $100 million cope with the couple.

While industry newsletter Puck reported that the couple's 2022 docuseries “Harry and Meghan,” about their departure from their unhappy royal life, was a blockbuster hit, critics say it only attracted viewers since the couple spilled dirty words concerning the British monarchy. Puck also reported that Meghan's upcoming cooking show and Harry's announced polo series were two “offerings” not expected to “resonate” with audiences.

Last 12 months, the couple were also the topic of reports in The Wrap and other industry publications that said they’d “lost their reputation” in Hollywood and missed opportunities because they were demanding to work with and lacked experience.

Despite their fans denying it, Harry and Meghan have develop into polarizing figures in each the U.S. and the U.K. One example is the undeniable fact that the British Army veteran and Invictus Games founder courted controversy when he agreed to simply accept an ESPYS award named after Pat Tillman, the San Jose-raised NFL player and war hero who died in Afghanistan in 2004. Among those that questioned Harry's decision to simply accept the award were a retired British military leader and Tillman's own mother, Mary Tillman.

It's clear that Harry and Meghan have had a difficult time trying to seek out a path for themselves within the United States that doesn't involve working for the royal family. But their journey has been complicated by Harry's estrangement from his father and his older brother, Prince William, with whom Harry was once such close friends.

Friends of the family of his late mother, Princess Diana, have told the Daily Beast that they hope Harry and William can in the future reconcile and that they’re doing every part they will to encourage their rapprochement. These friends were encouraged by the undeniable fact that Harry visited Britain last week to attend the funeral of his uncle Robert Fellowes, who was married to Diana's older sister Jane.

William was also on the funeral. However, the brothers reportedly didn’t speak to one another on the funeral. It has also been reported that William doesn’t want his younger brother to be present at his coronation. Page Six said.

So it's probably unrealistic that anyone expects Harry to settle his bitter dispute with William anytime soon, the Mail on Sunday reported. But the Daily Mail reported last week that Charles remains to be willing to settle his dispute along with his son. On the opposite hand, sources also told People last month that the royal is reportedly now not taking calls from his son.

The Mail on Sunday reported that the renegade royal is open to ideas “from many sources” on methods to patch things up along with his father and do his part to be certain that “Operation Bring Harry in from the Cold” is a hit. A friend has reportedly devised a technique for a way Harry could move in British circles again and even tackle “very low-profile royal duties.”

According to a source, this friend believes that Harry could prove himself and win over the British public again if he returns to the UK quietly, with none publicity and only attends very mundane events.

It's probably no surprise that Kate Middleton was reportedly unwell for “some time” before undergoing major abdominal surgery in January which was discovered to be cancerous.

However, if so, it signifies that the Princess of Wales can have been combating the symptoms of a really serious, previously undiagnosed illness across the time her name got here to light within the wake of a controversial racial scandal within the royal family.

The Dutch-language edition of “Endgame,” a book by Omid Scobie, a journalist and writer who supports Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, was published in late November. This version of Scobie's scathing critique of the fashionable monarchy features so-called “royal racists” in Kate and King Charles III – the members of the family who, Harry and Meghan say, raised concerns about what color their son Archie's skin can be when he was born.

In a brand new report within the Daily MailRoyal correspondent Rebecca English said Kate had been feeling “unwell for a while” before going into hospital in January for a “planned” abdominal operation, during which her cancer was discovered.

“It's been a very, very tough time, a really difficult year for the whole family,” a royal insider told English. “And as she herself said, she's not out of the woods yet.”

English's report raises the query of whether the furor surrounding Scobie's book and the unconfirmed “royal racism” allegations have made Kate and Prince William's “difficult year” even worse.

The release of Endgame was “snappy, gaudy” and “a hot mess” because the book promised to spill some latest royal secrets, because the New York Times reportedIt portrays Charles as a spoiled, “unpopular” leader, William as “power-hungry” and scheming against his father, and Kate as a “Stepford royal” who doesn't need to work as hard and who was “cold” to Meghan when she married Harry and joined the royal family in 2018.

The book also sparked the uproar over Harry and Meghan's claims to Oprah Winfrey that the biracial Duchess of Sussex was subjected to racist attitudes – or unconscious bias, as Harry would later say – during her time as a serving member of the royal family. The late Queen Elizabeth II responded to those claims by famously saying, “Recollections may vary.”

Scobie's unflattering portrayal of members of the royal family didn’t surprise many, as he co-authored “Finding Freedom,” a book that was sympathetic to Harry and Meghan's decision to go away royal life. British tabloids referred to Scobie as a “mouthpiece,” or unofficial spokesman, for the Sussexes, resulting in questions on whether Harry and Meghan had collaborated with Scobie in his reporting for “Endgame.”

The Sussexes, who live in California, denied any connection to the book through anonymous media leaks. However, they didn’t publicly distance themselves from the book, leading the Times UK editors to imagine that they could at the very least have “given their blessing to the book's largely unfounded anti-Windsor allegations.”

The editorial also called for Charles to strip Harry and Meghan of their royal titles. Given such a response from a longtime newspaper, it is probably going that the royal family was quite upset in regards to the Sussexes' supposed connection to Scobie and his book.

If Kate was also combating the symptoms of her cancer on the time, it is straightforward to assume that William was even angrier at his brother than he reportedly already was, and much less inclined to ever reconcile with him again.

The book's release became a “hot mess,” as The New York Times wrote, when the Dutch-language edition of the book got here out and contained this “unconfirmed, thoroughly radioactive nugget” – the claim that Kate and Charles were the members of the family who had discussed Archie's skin color.

It is a world mystery how Kate and Charles' names got into the Dutch-language version of Endgame. Scobie said he didn’t know and denied that their names were smuggled into the Dutch version as a publicity stunt. He said he only gave his British publisher, Harper Collins, a manuscript that didn’t include their names, out of concern about British libel laws.

But the Times UK reported that the writer's agent, United Talent Agency, had sent the Dutch publisher an earlier draft that named the Princess of Wales and the King because the members of the family in query. Scobie's agent later sent the Dutch publisher a final version that didn’t include the names, in accordance with the Times UK. Whatever happened, the Dutch translators ultimately based the Dutch-language interpretation on the sooner version that did include the names, and that version was published within the Netherlands and Belgium.

Kate was probably “not feeling well” within the meantime, but before and after her operation in January she “kept her suffering secret,” English reported, citing insider sources.

“I don't think people realize how much she's been through behind the scenes and for a long time, much longer than anyone really appreciates,” an insider told English. “She's an incredibly strong woman, but she's been through really tough times.”

The Daily Mail report stressed that there isn’t any timetable for if and when she is going to return to royal duties, although her cancer treatment goes well and there may be hope for a full recovery. The princess made her first public appearance since her diagnosis at Trooping the Colour in June. She also attended the boys's final at Wimbledon last month.

In a recent report from Daily BeastA friend said that even when Kate makes a full recovery, she would likely be far less within the highlight than she has up to now. This means she is going to make fewer public appearances. Her “blush with mortality” has left her wanting to give attention to her family, which incorporates her three children Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, 9, and Prince Louis, 6.

“From what I understand, people are going to have to get used to seeing Kate much less,” the friend told the Daily Beast. “For them, their family and the kids are their priority now.”

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are apparently preparing for a brand new media offensive: “CBS Sunday Morning” revealed that the couple filmed an interview with Jane Pauley that may air this weekend.

The chat would mark the primary time the California-based couple have taken part in a joint interview since their blockbuster sessions with Oprah Winfrey in 2021 and their 2022 Netflix documentary series. In those interviews, which got here after they stepped back from royal duties in 2020, they sparked a three-year media storm wherein they shared sensational revelations concerning the British royal family, alleging types of racism, cruelty and dysfunction, and specifically amplifying criticism of certain members.

But a brief clip from Harry and Meghan's interview with Pauley posted on social media suggests the California-based couple may avoid discussing Harry's relatives, from whom they’re notoriously estranged. In fact, a report in People magazine this week said King Charles III has stopped taking his son's calls. For the American and British public, Harry and Meghan's revelations have also develop into increasingly polarizing, as evidenced by the controversy that followed Harry receiving an award named in honor of American war hero Pat Tillman on the ESPYs.

The CBS Sunday interview could concentrate on one other latest initiative the Duke and Duchess try out with their Archewell Foundation, which involves children and social media. Page Six reported.

In the clip, the couple talks about continuing their work with parents who’ve lost their children to online bullying and abuse. Last October, the couple headlined a Project Healthy Minds festival in New York City, where they discussed the damaging effects of social media on young people's mental health.

This “CBS Sunday” interview comes amid what may very well be a serious latest media cycle for the couple, who’re still trying to search out their footing as media moguls, entrepreneurs and influential public figures.

Meghan was the subject of reports about ending filming a brand new cooking series for Netflix, which was a part of her five-year, $100 million take care of the platform. Harry can also be said to be working on his own show about skilled polo. Meghan has also announced plans to sell luxury home and lifestyle items through her latest American brand, Riviera Orchard. However, no launch dates for the cooking and polo shows or Meghan's lifestyle band have been announced.

Still, the couple has been making headlines currently. Following the ESPY controversy, Harry made more global headlines by giving an interview to British television about his high-profile legal battle with the British tabloids over their past phone-tapping and other illegal practices.

However, the once-popular British duke sparked fresh criticism when he said within the documentary “Tabloids on Trial” that his determination to fight against the tabloid press was “central” to his fractured relationship together with his father, brother Prince William and sister-in-law Kate Middleton. In various online forums, Harry was criticised for blaming his falling out together with his family on his court battles, relatively than taking responsibility for his decision to “talk incessantly about his family on a global scale”.

As a part of Harry and Meghan’s latest media cycle, the Duke can also be the quilt star for this week's People magazine, with a protracted story specializing in his other legal battle: getting the British government to provide him armed police protection when he visits the United Kingdom together with his wife and family. Harry was not interviewed for the story, but “sources” near him suggested he or his PR team approved the story.

The story allows Harry to argue that his estrangement from his family also stems from not getting the police protection he robotically enjoyed when he and Meghan were working members of the royal family. The Harry sources say he doesn't feel protected bringing his wife and youngsters, Archie and Lilibet, to the UK and that he’s frustrated that his father, as royal, is unwilling to assist him.

“Harry is scared and believes his father is the only one who can do something about it,” a royal insider told People. Another source acquainted with the situation said: “Harry is determined to protect his own family at all costs.”

Since losing the automated right to police protection, Harry has been waging an unsuccessful legal battle with the British government to have his protection restored, something he believes Charles could easily achieve.

But People reported, citing sources at Buckingham Palace, that under the British structure the monarch has no governing power and that the authority to supply police protection doesn’t lie with Charles but with the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (RAVEC), which acts on behalf of the British government.

While people near Harry said the problem had created “an impenetrable wall” between him and his father, sources near the king accused his son of resorting to “emotional blackmail” and threatened the king that he may never see his grandchildren Archie and Lilibet again if he didn’t address his son's safety concerns.

Originally published: August 1, 2024 at 10:54 am

K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil knew his story.

For eleven generations, the dynasty of the Mayan ruler Copan had ruled, a city-state near the present-day border between Honduras and Guatemala. From the fifth century AD to the seventh century AD, scribes painted his ancestral family trees in manuscripts and carved them into stone monuments throughout the town.

Around 650, a special piece of architectural history seems to have caught his eye.

Centuries earlier, village masons built special structures for public sun-viewing ceremonies—ceremonies timed to coincide with the solstice, similar to the one that can happen on June 20, 2024. The construction of such architectural complexes, which archaeologists call “E-groups,” had largely gone out of fashion by K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil's time.

But to appreciate his ambitious plans for his city, he seems to have found inspiration in these astronomical public spaces, as I even have seen in my research on ancient Mayan astronomy in hieroglyphs.

The innovations of K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil are a reminder that science changes through discoveries or inventions – but occasionally also for private or political reasons, especially in precedent days.

Looking on the horizon

E-groups were first inbuilt the Maya region as early as 1000 BC. The site of Ceibal on the banks of the Pasión River in central Guatemala is one such example. There, the inhabitants built a protracted, plastered platform borders the eastern edge of a giant plaza. Three buildings were arranged along a north-south axis on this platform, with roofs high enough to protrude above the rainforest cover.

In the middle of the square, west of the platform, they built a radially symmetrical pyramid. From there, observers could watch the sunrise behind and between the structures on the platform all year long.

At one level, the earliest E-Group complexes served very practical purposes. In Preclassic villages where these complexes were found, similar to Ceibal, several hundred to several thousand people made their living from “milpa” or “slash-and-burn” agriculture. still maintained in pueblos throughout Mesoamerica today. Farmers cut down scrub vegetation after which burn it to fertilize the soil. This requires careful attention to the rainy season, which in precedent days was tracked by the position of the rising sun on the horizon.

However, most sites within the Classic Maya heartland lie in flat, forested landscapes with few notable features on the horizon. To the viewer standing on top of a tall pyramid, all that’s striking is a green sea of ​​flower crowns.

By interrupting the horizon, the eastern structures of the E-Group complexes might be used to mark solar extremes. The sunrise behind the northernmost structure of the eastern platform might be observed on the summer solstice. The sunrise behind the southernmost structure marked the winter solstice. The equinoxes might be marked halfway between them when the sun rose due east.

Scientists are still discussing Key aspects of those complexesbut their religious significance is well documented. Finds of finely crafted jade and ritual ceramics reflect a cosmology based on the 4 cardinal directionswhich can have been coordinated with this 12 months's E-Group division.

Dwindling knowledge

However, the residents of K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil were probably less attuned to direct remark of the sky than their ancestors.

By the seventh century, the political organization of the Maya had modified considerably. Copan now had 25,000 inhabitants.and agricultural technologies also modified to maintain pace. The cities of the classical period practiced several types of intensive agriculture which relied on sophisticated water management strategies and mitigated the necessity to meticulously follow the sun's horizon movement.

E-Group complexes were still installed within the classical era, but were now not aligned with the sunrise and served more political or stylistic purposes than the representation of celestial views.

Such a development, I believe, remains to be relevant today. People listen to the changing seasons and know when the summer solstice occurs because of a calendar app on their phone. But they probably don't remember the science behind it: how the lean of the Earth and its path across the Sun make it appear as if the Sun itself is moving north or south on the eastern horizon.

United through ritual

By the mid-seventh century, K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil had developed ambitious plans for his city – and astronomy offered a strategy to help realize those plans.

He is thought today for his extravagant burial chamberan example of the success he eventually achieved. This tomb is situated in the center of an impressive constructing, in front of which the “Hieroglyphic Staircase“”: a record of the history of his dynasty, which is probably the most extensive single inscriptions in ancient history.

K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil looked for tactics to remodel Copan right into a regional power and sought alliances beyond the local nobility. He turned to the encircling villages.

Over the last century, several scholars, including myself, have studied the astronomical component of his plan. It appears that K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil commissioned a series of stone monuments or “stelae” to be erected throughout the city and within the foothills of the Copan Valley, and followed the sun on the horizon.

Like the E-Group complexes, these monuments involved the general public in observing the sun. Viewed together, the stelae formed a countdown to a very important calendrical event orchestrated by the sun.

In the Twenties, archaeologist Sylvanus Morley discovered that from Stela 12 within the east of the town, one could watch the sunset behind Stela 10 on a hill to the west twice a 12 months. Half a century later Archaeoastronomer Anthony Aveni realized that these two sunsets defined 20-day intervals relative to the equinoxes and the zenith passage of the sun, when the shadows of vertical objects disappear. Twenty days is a very important interval within the Mayan calendar and corresponds to the length of a “month” within the solar 12 months.

My own research showed that the dates on several steles also commemorate a few of these 20-day interval events. Moreover, all of them result in a 20-year event called the “Katun End.”

K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil celebrated this katun end and set in motion his plans for regional hegemony in Quirigua. a growing, influential city about 30 miles away. A round altar there bears a picture of him commemorating his arrival. The hieroglyphic text tells us that K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil “danced” at Quirigua, thus sealing an alliance between the 2 cities.

In other words, K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil's “sun steles” did greater than just track the sun. The monuments brought communities together to witness astronomical events and thus share cultural and spiritual experiences across generations.

Collectively appreciating the natural cycles that make life on Earth possible is something that, I hope, won’t ever exit of fashion.

Kensington Palace stressed this week that Kate Middleton is not going to be returning to work anytime soon, despite being described because the “driving force” behind a serious report into early childhood development published on Tuesday that urged corporations to adopt it more family-friendly ways of working.

But Kensington Palace didn’t say far more in regards to the Princess of Wales' health as she undergoes cancer treatment. The palace didn’t provide an expected timeline for when Catherine might return to royal duties, leaving her many admirers wondering about her recovery and wondering after they might see her in public again. based on Daily Mail royal columnist Richard Eden.

It seems that it might be months before she is seen in public again, Eden reported on Thursday, citing friends of the princess.

“Friends I have spoken to in recent days say we may not see Catherine again until the fall – and only then when she has fully recovered,” Eden said.

Kate has not undertaken any royal engagements since Christmas 2023. In January, she underwent what was described as a “planned” major abdominal surgery, sparking widespread speculation about her health when no further statements were remodeled the following two months.

In March, the princess posted a moving and direct video during which she revealed that she had been diagnosed with an unspecified type of cancer and was undergoing what she called “preventative chemotherapy.”

In the video message, Kate asked for “some time, space and privacy as I complete my treatment.” She also said: “I have always enjoyed my work and I look forward to being back when I am able, but for now I need to focus on making a full recovery.”

Eden reported that Kate's recovery stays the highest priority in her household, meaning that other features of the royal work she shares along with her husband Prince William have been placed on hold.

For example, Kate and William have suspended the seek for a brand new CEO for his or her household of around 60 employees, Eden reported. “Given the current situation, the royal household is focused on the Princess's recovery, so no appointment has been made yet,” a palace spokesperson said.

Even though recovery was her priority, Kate still managed to attend behind the scenes on the launch of the report by the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood and its associated Business Taskforce this week. Vanity Fair reported that she was informed of the report and kept updated on progress by the duty force she chairs. The task force goals to bring about sustainable societal change by giving children an excellent start in life. In its report, it called on corporations to support employees with families by offering flexible working hours or childcare.

Meanwhile, other members of the royal family have been stepping in for Kate at some events. This week, William's cousins, Princess Eugenie, Princess Beatrice, Peter Phillips and Zara Tindall, in addition to her husband Mike Tindall, helped the long run king host a garden party at Buckingham Palace for members of his and Kate's patronages and charities. Us Weekly reported. The party took place although it was raining.

“Rain or shine, I was delighted to join my family yesterday at the Garden Party at Buckingham Palace to meet some special people who have done everything humanly possible to support their communities and the country,” Eugenie wrote on Instagram Wednesday, next to photos of her family mingling with partygoers.