Prince Harry’s decision to stay at Princess Diana’s ancestral home during a recent trip to Britain has drawn fresh attention to the state of his relationship with the wider royal family, with some royal commentators suggesting the choice reflects both a closer bond with his mother’s relatives and continued distance from the Windsors.

Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, revealed to her Instagram followers this week that she, Harry and their children, Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, stayed as guests of Harry’s uncle, Earl Spencer, at the Althorp Estate in Northamptonshire during their recent visit to the United Kingdom, after the family was unable to secure accommodation at Buckingham Palace.

What the photos showed

Among the images shared by Meghan was one showing Lilibet walking through Althorp’s tree-lined avenue, near the private island on the estate’s lake where Diana is buried. Ahead of her, Harry and Archie can be seen carrying large bouquets of flowers, which the family laid at Diana’s grave and a nearby memorial. Sources confirmed to the Daily Mail that the images were taken at Althorp. According to People magazine, the visit was described as giving Harry and Meghan’s children an opportunity to spend time somewhere closely tied to their late grandmother, who died in a car crash in Paris in 1997, when Harry was 12.

Expert commentary on the significance of the stay

Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams told the Daily Mail that Harry’s choice to stay with Earl Spencer carries symbolic weight given the broader state of relations between the Windsor and Spencer families. “The Windsors and the Spencer’s have a superficially polite relationship. If you look deeper, there is clearly no love lost, memories of Diana will always influence relations between them,” Fitzwilliams said. “The relations between the Royal Family and the Spencer’s have been marked by politeness but not closeness. However, the Spencers definitely appear to be closer to Harry than William.”

Fitzwilliams suggested that Harry’s ties to the Spencer family could provide him with a reliable base in Britain going forward. “The Sussexes have an ally in Britain which they can use as and when they choose to return,” he said. “This almost certainly means that Harry can rely on a base at Althorp when he needs one and this would undoubtedly extend to Meghan and Archie and Lili.” Fitzwilliams added that he believed Harry’s closeness with the Spencers is “likely to cause concern for the Royal Family.”

A precedent from 2024

This is not the first time Harry has chosen Althorp over royal accommodations during a UK visit. During a 2024 trip for the funeral of Diana’s brother-in-law, Lord Robert Fellowes, Harry reportedly turned down an offer to stay at Buckingham Palace in favor of staying with Earl Spencer. Fitzwilliams said at the time that the decision “throws into sharp relief the apparent breakdown in relations not only with his brother, to whom he has reportedly not spoken for two years, but with his father,” adding that the choice “intentionally emphasises his links with his mother’s family.”

A historically strained Windsor-Spencer relationship

Former BBC royal correspondent Michael Cole offered additional historical context, noting that there “never much was love lost between the Spencers and the Windsors.” Cole pointed to Diana’s funeral in 1997, when Harry’s “birth family,” led by Earl Spencer and Lady Jane Fellowes, attended St. Paul’s Cathedral to support Harry while, according to Cole, “the entire Royal Family stayed away.” Cole also recalled a symbolic moment when Diana’s coffin arrived for burial at Althorp, saying Earl Spencer “whipped off the flag that covered it and replaced it with the Spencer standard.” Cole described the moment as illustrative of the lasting divide between the two families, saying “nothing could have illustrated more clearly the gap that will always separate two famous families.”

Harry’s reported consideration of the Spencer name

According to the Daily Mail, Harry previously explored the possibility of changing his family name to Spencer, a move that would have meant dropping Mountbatten-Windsor, the surname used by his children. A friend of Harry’s said he discussed the idea with Earl Spencer during a visit to Britain, but was advised against it. “They had a very amicable conversation and Spencer advised him against taking such a step,” the friend said, citing insurmountable legal obstacles. In the acknowledgments of his memoir “Spare,” Harry thanked Earl Spencer for supporting him through the difficulties he faced following Diana’s death.

A busy and complicated week for the Sussexes

The Althorp stay came during a broader five-day UK trip for Harry centered on Invictus Games events and his charitable work. Harry initially arrived in London alone after a last-minute chaos over his Buckingham Palace invitation, which was reportedly withdrawn hours before his arrival. Meghan later entered the country separately with Archie and Lilibet, amid ongoing security concerns.

Following the family’s European travels, which also included the previously reported stop in Portugal, Harry, Meghan and their children met privately with King Charles and Queen Camilla for tea at Highgrove, the King’s private Gloucestershire residence, marking their first meeting since 2022. Buckingham Palace confirmed the visit only after the family had already left, and no photographs from that reunion have been made public.

Fitzwilliams suggested that future Sussex visits to Britain, including a planned trip for the 2027 Invictus Games in Birmingham, may similarly center around the Spencer family rather than royal accommodations. “Whatever reception they receive from the Royal Family, they can be assured of a warm welcome and moral support from the Spencer’s,” he said, adding that the family “would undoubtedly welcome the opportunity to see them again.”

Buckingham Palace has not publicly commented on the arrangements surrounding Harry’s recent stay at Althorp, and it remains unclear how future visits by the Sussexes to the UK might be structured as questions about the broader state of relations within the royal family continue.

Instagram has begun banning users who post content filmed with Meta’s smart glasses that harasses or exploits unsuspecting members of the public, following mounting criticism over a wave of so-called pickup and prank videos built around secretly recording strangers, particularly women, without their knowledge or consent.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri confirmed the policy change in an Instagram Stories Q&A, first reported by Business Insider. “If you’re posting content that is taking advantage of people and harassing them, like a lot of these pickup line kind of videos that we’ve heard of and seen, then we’re going to take the content down,” Mosseri said. “We don’t want people to be surreptitiously taking videos of other people and harassing them and then posting them on our platform. So we’re trying to fight that in any way we can.”

What kind of content is being targeted

The crackdown covers two main categories of videos that have proliferated on the platform: so-called pickup videos, in which creators approach strangers, often women, in public settings while secretly recording the interaction with hidden cameras built into their smart glasses, and prank videos that typically target service workers, including cashiers and fast-food employees, with content that frequently verges into harassment. Creators have recorded these encounters in a range of public settings, including gyms, airports, bars, stores and public streets, often without the other person ever realizing they were being filmed.

Accounts already removed

Business Insider reported that at least two prominent accounts built around this kind of content, both with more than 1 million followers, have already been deactivated under the new policy. A Meta spokesperson confirmed to the outlet that the accounts were removed specifically for posting harassment content filmed using the company’s smart glasses. Meta has not disclosed how many total videos or accounts have been taken down since the policy went into effect, nor has the company specified precisely how enforcement decisions are being made at scale.

Real accounts of being secretly recorded

The policy shift follows a growing number of firsthand accounts from women who discovered they had been filmed without their knowledge and later found the footage posted online. One woman, 25-year-old social worker Kassy Zanjani, told The Independent that a man wearing smart glasses approached her at a fast-food restaurant in Vancouver, Canada, and struck up a conversation. She didn’t think much of the interaction until a friend later sent her a video of the entire exchange that had been posted to Instagram. “It was very anxiety-provoking being secretly filmed without my awareness or consent, and for that to then be posted in this manner, that I don’t think is rooted in any good intentions,” Zanjani said. “I think he’s purposefully targeting intoxicated women, vulnerable women, to elicit a response from them to use as content.”

In a separate incident reported by People, a woman identified only as Toluwa said she was approached by a man at a Washington, D.C., airport lounge and gave him her phone number after a conversation, only to later discover videos of the same man approaching other women at airports using smart glasses. When she learned her own conversation had also been recorded, the man reached out over text with the footage and asked for her permission to post it. She declined, but the man posted the video anyway. “It blows up and to the point where people are sending me this video,” Toluwa said.

A branding problem for Meta’s glasses

The pattern of secretly filmed encounters has generated unflattering nicknames for Meta’s smart glasses products, including “pervert glasses” and “predator glasses,” terms that reflect growing public frustration with how the devices have been used. That reputational challenge comes as Meta continues pushing smart glasses as a flagship consumer product, making the harassment controversy a notable complication for the company’s broader wearable technology ambitions.

Meta’s technical response to camera tampering

Beyond the new content moderation policy, Meta has also taken steps to address a separate but related problem: users disabling or hiding the small LED light built into the glasses that signals when the device is actively recording. According to a July 7 explainer from Meta, the company’s second-generation glasses will now automatically disable the camera entirely if the device detects that its recording indicator light has been tampered with, whether by tape, film or physical modification.

That change followed reports that a cottage industry had emerged around helping users disable the recording light without triggering detection, with people in at least 30 states reportedly offering the tampering service, according to journalist Joanna Stern. Meta said it actively works to remove advertisements, posts and Marketplace listings that offer these glasses-tampering services.

Limitations of the recording indicator

Even when functioning as intended, critics have noted that the LED indicator light on Meta’s glasses is relatively easy to miss, particularly in outdoor settings with natural light, raising questions about how effective the built-in privacy safeguard has been at actually alerting people that they are being recorded in real time.

A grassroots response as well

The controversy has also spurred independent efforts outside of Meta’s own policies. App developer Yves Jeanrenaud created a free application called Nearby Glasses, which scans for Bluetooth signals emitted by Meta’s smart glasses and sends users a push notification if someone wearing the eyewear is nearby. According to The Independent, the app has been downloaded roughly 78,000 times since launching a few weeks earlier, reflecting significant public demand for tools that can help people detect when they might be recorded without their consent.

While Instagram’s new enforcement policy marks a formal acknowledgment of a problem that has been building for months, Meta has not detailed exactly how consistently or aggressively the policy will be applied going forward, nor whether it plans to expand its camera-tampering safeguards further. With smart glasses continuing to grow in popularity and Meta positioning them as a central part of its future product lineup, how effectively the company balances that growth against ongoing privacy and harassment concerns is likely to remain a closely watched issue in the months ahead.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq ​fell on Friday as investors sold chip stocks on worries about massive spending on artificial intelligence ahead of the next batch of megacap earnings reports, while falling oil prices provided Wall Street with some support even as Middle East hostilities continued.

The S&P 500 ended close to flat but ‌its biggest weight came from ⁠the ⁠S&P 500 technology index, which underperformed the broader market as chip stocks fell.

While investors wait for results from megacaps Microsoft , Amazon.com, Meta and Apple Inc , ​their enthusiasm was weakened by Alphabet’s announcement, late on Wednesday, of a plan to hike capital spending even as it burns cash.

After piling ​into technology stocks in recent years, on the promise of growth from AI, investors have become worried about the need for ever-increasing capital outlays for AI, according to Peter Andersen, CEO of Andersen Capital Management.

“People are thinking, how do we make ​sense of all this spending, and how much more patient do we have ⁠to be before ‌we actually see it translate to actual profits?” Andersen said.

“The fear of missing out is ​becoming more like ​a fear of massive overbuilding.”
Late on Thursday, Intel forecast quarterly profit and revenue above Wall Street estimates ⁠and outlined plans to increase spending over the next two years. Still, the chipmaker’s ​shares sank on Friday along with the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index.According to preliminary data, ​the S&P 500 gained 3.74 points, or 0.07%, to end at 7,413.30 points, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 157.35 points, or 0.63%, to 24,980.34. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 235.87 points, or 0.46%, to 51,947.52.

Among the S&P 500’s 11 major industry indexes, real estate outperformed during the session. The sector’s leading gainer was Digital Realty Trust, which rallied after it raised its full-year forecast for funds from operations.

Also providing some relief, crude oil futures fell more than 3% while traders booked profits from ‌a massive rally in the last five sessions and after sources said China was pushing to resume stalled U.S.-Iran peace talks. Still, U.S. missiles struck targets across Iran after President Donald Trump vowed “major military punishment” ​for Tehran and ​its Houthi allies in Yemen.

“Whatever the ⁠headlines are involving the conflict right now, that drives oil and then oil drives financial markets,” said Andersen, adding that swings in oil prices can impact consumer and corporate spending.

Also, the Trump administration imposed new tariffs of 10% and 12.5% on ​goods from 60 trading partners, citing lax enforcement of forced-labor bans. The move came as a temporary 10% global tariff expired.

Friday’s data showed that activity in the U.S. services sector accelerated in July, aided in part by spending around the FIFA World Cup and the Independence Day holiday, while the pace of growth in the manufacturing sector eased to the slowest since March.

Among other individual gainers, SLB shares climbed after the oilfield services firm beat expectations for second-quarter profit.

Shares of Intel fell Friday morning even after the chipmaker delivered a significant second-quarter earnings beat and raised its capital spending plans, as investors continued taking profits following one of the stock’s strongest rallies in company history.

Intel shares traded at $96.04 as of 10:43 a.m. Eastern time, down $4.19, or 4.18%, on the day. The decline extends a sharp pullback that has gripped the stock throughout July, even as Thursday’s earnings report initially sent shares climbing in after-hours trading.

A strong quarter by most measures

Intel reported second-quarter revenue growth of 25%, which the company described as its fastest pace in nearly 15 years. Chief Executive Lip-Bu Tan pointed to surging demand for computing power tied to artificial intelligence as the primary driver behind the results. “AI is driving unprecedented demand for compute,” Tan said in the company’s earnings statement. “As we continue to execute, Intel is well-positioned to capture sustainable growth across our CPU franchise.”

The company’s Data Center and AI division generated $2.5 billion in operating income during the quarter, according to CNBC, while Intel’s foundry business, its effort to manufacture chips for outside customers, posted a $2.1 billion operating loss, reflecting the ongoing costs of that expansion effort even as the segment’s revenue reached $5.8 billion.

Following the report, Intel shares initially jumped roughly 9% in after-hours trading Thursday, climbing above $109 at one point, according to CNN, after the company beat both earnings and revenue expectations and issued stronger-than-expected third-quarter guidance.

Raised spending plans

Alongside its earnings beat, Intel raised its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to more than $20 billion, up from a previous target of $18 billion, with Chief Financial Officer David Zinsner indicating that 2027 spending would rise “significantly above” this year’s levels. Zinsner told CNBC that the company’s newest manufacturing process, known as 18A, was progressing ahead of where earlier technology generations stood at comparable points in their development cycles.

Zinsner also offered a note of caution about near-term demand patterns, telling CNN that PC consumption is expected to be “subseasonal” during the second half of the year, even as wafer demand across the broader business continues to outstrip supply.

For the current quarter, Intel guided toward adjusted earnings per share of 38 cents, alongside revenue guidance in the range of $15.8 billion to $16.8 billion.

A stock riding an extraordinary run, and a sharp pullback

Friday’s decline continues a volatile stretch for Intel shares that has defined much of 2026. The stock surged 278% during the first half of the year, according to Bloomberg, marking the third-best performance among all S&P 500 companies over that period, before climbing to a record closing high of nearly $141 per share on June 22. Since then, shares have fallen roughly 27% to 28%, ranking Intel among the 10 worst-performing stocks in the S&P 500 for the month of July alone, even as the company’s underlying business results have remained strong.

Bloomberg reported that the broader pullback reflects investors rotating away from some of this year’s biggest winners and growing more cautious on semiconductor stocks generally, rather than any specific concern about Intel’s own operational performance. That dynamic was on display again Thursday, when Intel shares slid as much as 2.5% even ahead of the earnings report that would ultimately beat expectations.

A valuation that leaves little room for error

Even with the stock’s steep July pullback, Intel continues to trade at a notably rich valuation relative to its semiconductor peers. Ahead of Thursday’s report, Intel was trading at roughly 94 times forward earnings, according to 24/7 Wall St., a figure considerably higher than faster-growing chip companies including Nvidia, Broadcom, Taiwan Semiconductor and Micron, which have traded between roughly 13 and 33 times expected earnings. That premium reflects strong investor confidence in Intel’s ability to restore its profit margins and reaccelerate growth, a bar that analysts say leaves little room for anything less than a clean earnings beat and confident forward guidance.

Analyst reaction

Despite Friday’s pullback, several analysts described Intel’s underlying turnaround as increasingly credible. According to Barron’s, analysts pointed to the company’s earnings beat and upbeat outlook as evidence that more gains could still be ahead, even amid the stock’s recent volatility. MarketWatch similarly framed the results as a marker of how far the company has come, noting that Intel’s latest quarter demonstrated a dramatic recovery from a period when the company had been widely described as “near-dead.”

Context around Intel’s broader comeback

Intel’s stock performance this year has also been shaped by developments beyond its own earnings reports. The company’s shares soared 84% last year after the U.S. government took a 10% equity stake in Intel as part of a broader effort to support domestic chip manufacturing, a move that has continued to factor into investor sentiment around the company’s long-term strategic positioning within the U.S. semiconductor industry.

With Intel’s 52-week range now spanning from roughly $18.97 to $142.35, according to Robinhood market data, the stock’s next moves are likely to hinge on whether the company’s improving fundamentals, particularly continued momentum in its data center and AI-related server chip sales, can offset the broader wariness currently weighing on semiconductor valuations across the market. Investors will also be watching closely for further updates on Intel’s foundry business and its 18A manufacturing process, both of which remain central to the company’s pitch that its current turnaround marks a durable shift rather than another false start following years of underperformance.

A South Korean court ordered billionaire SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won to pay his former wife more than $640 million in a divorce settlement that could force him to sell assets, borrow money or pledge shares as collateral.

The Seoul High Court ruled Friday that Chey must pay Roh Soh-yeong 944 billion won (about $645 million), marking the largest divorce asset award in South Korean history. It’s been dubbed the so-called “divorce of the century.”

The payout is substantially lower than the 1.38 trillion (about $935 million) won awarded by an appeals court in 2024, but the revised judgment has renewed investor scrutiny of Chey’s holdings and how he could finance the payment.

Analysts said Chey may need to sell assets or borrow against his shares, though they do not expect the award to threaten his control of SK Group.

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Chey owns a 17.9% stake in SK Inc., the conglomerate’s holding company, and has an estimated fortune of $5.4 billion, according to Forbes.

The court ordered Chey to make the payment in cash rather than transfer stock, citing the importance of his shares to maintaining control of the conglomerate.

Shares of SK Inc. closed 3.8% lower Friday, while SK Hynix fell 8.3% in Seoul trading following the ruling.

SK Group’s profile has risen sharply during the artificial intelligence boom through SK Hynix, a major supplier of high-bandwidth memory chips used with Nvidia’s AI processors.

Judges awarded Roh one-third of the couple’s marital property after finding that she contributed to preserving and increasing the family’s wealth during the marriage.

The ruling followed a South Korean Supreme Court decision rejecting claims that alleged financial support from Roh’s father, former President Roh Tae-woo, should be included in the asset calculation.

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Either side may appeal the ruling, potentially sending the property-division dispute back to the Supreme Court.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Social Security’s looming insolvency in under a decade could be delayed by a change to how the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) is calculated, with a new analysis finding that it could cut the entitlement program’s 75-year fiscal shortfall in half.

The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) proposed a COLA cap that would limit the dollar amount of the annual increase in Social Security benefits received by those with higher benefit amounts. That proposal was similar to a flat-rate COLA proposed by one of the think tank’s co-chairs, former Rep. Tim Penny, when he was in Congress in 1987.

The flat-rate COLA would pay all Social Security beneficiaries the same COLA, which would be set at the COLA received by a beneficiary at the 20th percentile of the benefit range – a move that effectively combined a COLA cap with a COLA floor at that level.

CRFB asked the Urban Institute’s Karen Smith to estimate how a flat-rate COLA set at the 20th percentile and 30th percentile beneficiary would impact Social Security’s solvency and benefits. The analysis found that a flat-rate COLA at the 20th percentile would close 50% of Social Security’s 75-year shortfall compared to her baseline, while at the 30th percentile it would close about 40%.

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The flat-rate COLA would be relatively progressive – slowing the growth in benefits the most for those with the highest lifetime earnings and with the most income in retirement.

If set at the 20th percentile, the bottom fifth of lifetime earners would see benefits decline by just 3% in 2065, compared with 19% for the top fifth of earners. For a flat-rate COLA at the 30th percentile, it would boost the bottom quintile’s benefit by 1% while the top fifth would see benefits decline 17%.

Both a 20th or 30th percentile flat-rate COLA would boost Social Security benefits for the lowest quintile by 13% to 14%.

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A flat-rate COLA at the 20th percentile would delay the insolvency of Social Security’s main trust funds by two years – though CRFB noted that if it were combined with other policies, such as its employer compensation tax proposal, it could keep the merged trust funds solvent for 75 years close to it.

Looking back, if Congress had adopted a flat-rate COLA back in 1987 when it was proposed by Penny, CRFB’s estimates suggest it would have achieved 75-year solvency at the time, delaying insolvency to 2071.

It also would’ve covered about three-quarters of the solvency gap through 2100, giving policymakers time to make other gradual reforms to Social Security to address the remaining gap.

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The most recent estimates put the insolvency of Social Security in 2032, when benefits would be subject to an automatic cut of 22% to match incoming tax revenue after trust funds are tapped out. That would amount to a $16,900 cut in annual benefits for a medium-income, dual-earning couple starting in 2033.

The fast-approaching insolvency of the trust funds and the implications for American retirees should compel policymakers to pursue reforms to shore up the program’s finances as soon as possible, CRFB argued.

“One of the biggest takeaways of this particular solution is that it is a stark reminder of the real cost of waiting to save Social Security,” CRFB president Maya MacGuineas told FOX Business.

“Adopting a flat-rate COLA back when Congressman Penny proposed the idea would have achieved solvency through 2071, nearly half a century from now, and would have done so by protecting lower-income beneficiaries and reducing old-age poverty; now, that same plan would only delay insolvency another two years,” she explained.

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“The good news is there are plenty of options out there that, when combined, can save Social Security from abrupt across-the-board cuts in just six years. But taking options off the table and waiting until the last minute leaves fewer and fewer ways to make the math work,” MacGuineas added.