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Meghan uses ‘HRH’ title but denies breaking rules

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Meghan uses 'HRH' title but denies breaking rules


The Duchess of Sussex used the title HRH on a card sent with a personal gift but not for any public purpose, sources close to her have said.

A video accompanying a podcast shows a gift basket for US cosmetics entrepreneur Jamie Kern Lima, which includes a card saying: “With the Compliments of HRH The Duchess of Sussex.”

When Prince Harry and Meghan stepped down as working royals there was an agreement to stop using HRH, which stands for Her/His Royal Highness, but they still hold the titles.

Sources close to the California-based couple reject that this card was a breach of the agreement struck on their departure from royal duties.

According to sources, the couple do not use HRH in commercial or public settings – and this was only a private use of the title and was for a gift given more than a year ago.

This distinction would mean the HRH title was not being used to promote the jams and food products in Meghan’s As Ever range or her Netflix cookery series.

The card was shown in a video of a podcast hosted by Jamie Kern Lima, who said that when she had been “super-stressed” that Meghan had cheered her up by dropping round some ice cream and “home made strawberry sauce”.

Mrs Kern Lima said the gift showed great empathy and gave something that “adds value to my life”.

Prince Harry and Meghan lost the use of the titles when they stopped being working royals in 2020 and left the UK, initially to move to Canada and then to the US.

“The Sussexes will not use their HRH titles as they are no longer working members of the Royal Family,” said a statement from Buckingham Palace at the time.

They also stopped receiving public funding as they embarked on “the next chapter of their lives”.

But this agreement did not remove the title, it restricted how it was used, with this card suggesting that it has still been used in private.

Another non-working royal, Prince Andrew, also does not use HRH in any official capacity, but still has the title.

The podcast with Jamie Kern Lima also included Meghan discussing her relationship with Prince Harry: “You have to imagine at the beginning, everyone has, like, butterflies.

“Then we immediately went into the trenches together. Yeah, right out of the gate, like six months into dating.

“So now, seven years later, when you have a little bit of breathing space, you can just enjoy each other in a new way, and that’s why I feel like it’s more of a honeymoon period for us now.”



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Ukrainian commander faces trial for failing to stop torture within his unit

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Ukrainian commander faces trial for failing to stop torture within his unit


Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation has completed its probe into Colonel Oleh Poberezhniuk, commander of the 211th Pontoon Bridge Brigade, accusing him of knowingly allowing torture and abuse of soldiers under his command to continue unchecked, the officials said on May 29.

According to the official statement, investigators determined that from February to July 2024, Poberezhniuk was aware of repeated instances of torture and cruel treatment carried out by a subordinate officer but failed to take any action. The officer in question, Senior Lieutenant Vladyslav Pastukh, allegedly beat, humiliated, and tortured fellow servicemen.

Pastukh, who is no longer with the unit, is the son of the brigade’s chief of staff and a close associate of Poberezhniuk. Authorities say this personal connection likely influenced the commander’s decision to conceal the crimes and avoid reporting them to law enforcement.

Pastukh was charged with abusing his authority in December 2024  after allegedly beating, humiliating, and torturing fellow service members. The commander faces up to 12 years in prison if convicted.

“Instead of protecting the rights of his subordinates, the commander effectively became complicit through criminal inaction, enabling further abuse,” the bureau said. Such actions, it added, not only violate the law but also pose a serious threat to the internal discipline of Ukraine’s Armed Forces during wartime.

Poberezhniuk has been charged with inaction of military authority under martial law, a serious offense under Ukraine‘s Criminal Code, carrying a sentence of seven to 10 years in prison. The case has been forwarded to Poberezhniuk and his legal team for review before being submitted to court. The Prosecutor General‘s Office is overseeing the case.

The charges follow a December 2023 Ukrainska Pravda investigation that revealed a pattern of systemic abuse within the brigade, including beatings, extortion, and reports of a soldier being tied to a wooden cross. The report also highlighted widespread nepotism, with multiple family members serving within the same unit.

Following public outcry, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi suspended Poberezhniuk, and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov ordered an internal investigation.

How much does a Russian drone attack on Ukraine cost? The question is more complicated than it sounds

Beginning overnight on Saturday, May 24, Russia rained down nearly a thousand drones and missiles on villages and cities across Ukraine in three nights of large-scale aerial attacks, as civilians spent hours sheltering underground. Russia’s bombardment killed more than a dozen people and injured dozens more, in one of

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100 years before Elon Musk, one of America’s richest men came to fix Washington. It didn’t end well.

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100 years before Elon Musk, one of America's richest men came to fix Washington. It didn't end well.

He was one of the richest men of his time, a powerful force in business and then in government — so influential that political adversaries taunted the White House that he was “the real president.”

Today, that’s Elon Musk’s story, as the world’s richest man winds down his tumultuous time in Washington as a “special government employee” in President Donald Trump’s administration. But while Musk’s astronomical wealth and the work of his Department of Government Efficiency have been one of a kind, there are strong echoes of another businessman-turned-slasher-of-government who came to Washington just more than 100 years ago.

Andrew Mellon, a Pittsburgh banker and one of America’s wealthiest men in the early 20th century, was treasury secretary to three Republican presidents — Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover — for more than a decade in the 1920s and early 1930s.

Like Musk, Mellon came to Washington with the aim of drastically cutting back federal spending. Like Musk, he remained involved in his private businesses at the same time, as biographer David Cannadine has chronicled, sparking fierce protests from opposition Democrats. Like Musk, political opponents made him a national boogeyman and suggested that Mellon was the true power in Washington.

Three presidents served under him, the joke went. Sen. Robert La Follette Sr., a Wisconsin progressive, said Mellon was “the real president of the United States. Calvin Coolidge is merely the man who occupies the White House.”

And as Musk leaves the White House and appears to consider his political legacy, voicing concern that Trump and Republican lawmakers won’t follow through on his hopes of big spending cuts, Mellon’s own complicated legacy illustrates how difficult even titans of industry have found the task of permanently bending politics and government toward their will.

Mellon achieved his goals for a time, paring back yearly federal spending to approximately half the level it was before he took over the Treasury Department and reforming U.S. tax laws.

But the Great Depression turned the nation sharply against him and the Republican Party personified by wealthy businessmen, with Mellon becoming a political lightning rod in the way Musk has this year.

President and Mrs. Coolidge with Andrew Mellon
Andrew Mellon (center) with President Calvin Coolidge and first lady Grace Coolidge on the White House lawn in 1926.Bettmann / Bettmann Archive

In “Mellon: An American Life,” Cannadine wrote that Mellon’s son recalled witnessing an early exercise in political social media targeting the treasury secretary: a rhyme written on a urinal at a rest stop between Pittsburgh and Washington.

“Mellon pulled the whistle, Hoover rang the bell,” it began, “Wall Street gave the signal, and the country went to hell.”

When Democrats took back Congress in the backlash after the Depression began, they investigated the intersection of Mellon businesses and government contracts they won while he was in the Cabinet, initiating impeachment proceedings before he resigned to take an ambassadorship.

And ultimately, Mellon saw his low-spending, laissez-faire ethos pushed aside in national politics by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal, which ushered in a wave of government spending and social programs that were anathema to Mellon-era Republicans.

No historical comparison lines up neatly in all respects. While Musk and Trump’s administration sought to slash programs through presidential orders and an expansive view of executive power, Mellon worked through Congress to enact his budgetary priorities.

Mellon was fabulously wealthy, thanks to investments in businesses from aluminum to oil to early airlines and beyond, but Musk’s businesses and riches are on a significantly different scale. And Mellon’s final work with the government, years later, was also of a decidedly nonpolitical nature: He established the National Gallery of Art, seeding it with his impressive private collection.

President Trump and Elon Musk speak alongside Tesla vehicles at the White House
President Donald Trump and Elon Musk at the White House on March 11. Andrew Harnik / Getty Images

Musk’s story is far from its final chapter, with more twists and details to come even as he ends his stint at the White House. What we know for sure, though, is that wealth and power of that magnitude endure through the years.

In a twist of fate, after the Trump administration and DOGE slashed grants and staff this year, the Mellon Foundation, which was launched by Mellon’s children decades ago using part of the family fortune, stepped in to fill $15 million of the gap.

And there’s another eye-popping financial connection between the Mellon years and Musk’s time in government.

Musk was the biggest disclosed donor in the 2024 elections. The second-biggest? Timothy Mellon, Mellon’s grandson, who gave nearly $200 million in support of Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other causes, according to OpenSecrets — paving the way for Musk’s stint with DOGE in Washington.

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Loose Women’s Nadia Sawalha brands ITV cuts ‘absolutely brutal’

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Loose Women's Nadia Sawalha brands ITV cuts 'absolutely brutal'


Helen Bushby

Culture reporter

Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock Nadia Sawalha on Loose WomenKen McKay/ITV/Shutterstock

Loose Women panellist Nadia Sawalha has said ITV’s cuts to its daytime schedule came “out of the blue” and have been “absolutely brutal” for those working on the show.

ITV announced last week it was axing more than 220 jobs and making cuts to shows including Loose Women and Lorraine.

Speaking on her YouTube channel, Sawalha said: “What’s been brutal, absolutely brutal, over the last week, honestly I feel tearful about it, is that hundreds of people… are going to be made redundant out of the blue, these are all the people behind the scenes that support us in every way.”

There have been reports that the pool of panellists will be reduced, and Sawalha said she “could be let go tomorrow, [or] I could be let go in five years”.

In an annoucnement last week, ITV boss Kevin Lygo stressed that daytime is “a really important part” of its programming, and said he recognised that the plans “will have an impact on staff”.

Getty Images Lorraine Kelly smiling in a gold dress while holding a Bafta television awardGetty Images

Lorraine Kelly’s shorter weekday show will now air for 30 weeks out of 52

In her video, Sawalha, who has also appeared in EastEnders, Dancing on Ice and The Bill, said Loose Women and Lorraine had been “highly successful”, but that she accepted inflation was “insane, and cuts have to be made”, before becoming emotional.

“Behind the scenes there are people that are really suffering, and what you don’t realise is when you attack the show you attack them, because you never see all the army of people behind the scenes and how hard they work,” she said.

“So to all my friends and colleagues behind the scenes that have just got a huge shock out of the blue, I’m so sorry.”

She added that she thought some conversations about the cuts had been “misogynistic”, stressing the impact of the cuts on many of her friends and colleagues on the show, who have worked there for decades.

“I can’t tell you how upsetting it was to see people walking around numb with shock and fear about what they are going to do… [when] television is coming very slowly to its natural end.”

Speaking from her own perspective, she added: “What people don’t realise at Loose Women is that we’re self-employed. I am self-employed. Every contract is a new contract.

“I could be let go tomorrow, I could be let go in five years, you don’t know because we’re not employees.”

‘Impact on off-screen staff’

Under the changes, Loose Women will be broadcast for 30 instead of 52 weeks. Lorraine Kelly’s morning show will also be cut to 30 weeks, and will reduce from an hour to 30 minutes.

While ITV did not comment on Sawalha’s views, they referred to Lygo’s comments about the cuts in last week’s announcement.

“I recognise that our plans will have an impact on staff off-screen in our Daytime production teams, and we will work with ITV Studios and ITN as they manage these changes to produce the shows differently from next year, and support them through this transition,” ITV’s managing director of media and entertainment said.

“Daytime has been a core element of ITV’s schedule for over 40 years and these changes will set ITV up to continue to bring viewers award winning news, views and discussion as we enter our eighth decade.”

During weeks when Lorraine is not on air, Good Morning Britain will extend by half an hour, from 06:00 BST to 10:00 BST. This Morning will stay in its slot on weekdays across the year.

In February, ITV announced that soaps Coronation Street and Emmerdale would see their content cut by an hour a week between them from next year.

Earlier this month, ITV chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall said the company was making “good progress” on a cost-cutting drive, and that she expected to make £30m non-content savings during 2025.

In the past few years, there has been a downturn in advertising revenue, part of a funding squeeze throughout the TV industry.



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