Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Prince William defends family
The prince insisted Thursday that his family is not racist, despite Meghan’s remarks.
LONDON — Prince William insisted Thursday that his family is not racist as he became the first British royal to speak out about accusations of bigotry made by Prince Harry and Meghan, his brother and sister-in-law.
William made the comments in response to questions shouted at him by reporters during a visit to an East London school. While members of the royal family often ignore such queries, William used the opportunity to address the allegations that have rocked the monarchy.
“We’re very much not a racist family,” William, 38, said as his wife, Kate, walked by his side.
Buckingham Palace is struggling to quiet criticism after Harry and Meghan alleged that the duchess was the victim of racism and callous treatment during her time as a working member of the royal family.
The palace tried to respond to the charges, made during an interview with television host Oprah Winfrey, with a 61-word statement that critics called “too little, too late.”
William, second in line to the throne after his father, Prince Charles, made the comments during a visit to School 21 to mark students’ return to classrooms following a national lockdown.
Harry, 36, and Meghan, 39, walked away from royal duties last year and moved to California, saying they wanted to escape the intrusive British media and live a normal life.
Meghan, who is biracial, said in the interview that she was so isolated and miserable as a working member of the royal family that she had suicidal thoughts. She also said Harry told her that members of the royal family had expressed “concerns” about the color of her baby’s skin before the birth of their son, Archie. Ex-presidents urge shots:
Former presidents and first ladies encouraged Americans to get a COVID-19 vaccine in two new advertisements — while former President Donald Trump took credit for the vaccines.
One of the ads, titled “It’s Up To You” and posted Wednesday to YouTube, shows former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and former first ladies Michelle Obama, Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton and Rosalynn Carter getting their shots while discussing the importance of the coronavirus vaccine.
“This vaccine means hope,” Obama says in the ad.
The second ad shows three of the former presidents — Obama, Bush and Clinton — sharing information about the vaccines and again encouraging Americans to get it.
“The science is clear,” Bush says. “These vaccines will protect you and those you love from this dangerous and deadly disease.”
Trump did not participate in either ad.
On Wednesday, Trump released a statement taking credit for the availability of the coronavirus vaccines, saying that if he hadn’t been president “you wouldn’t be getting that beautiful ‘shot’ for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldn’t be getting it at all.”
“I hope everyone remembers,” Trump said.
Boost for Dr. Seuss books:
Oh, the books that sold last week by Dr. Seuss.
More than 1.2 million copies of stories by the late children’s author sold in the first week of March — more than quadruple from the week before — following the news that his estate was pulling six books because of racial and ethnic stereotyping.
For days virtually every book in the top 20 on Amazon’s bestseller list was by Dr. Seuss.
According to NPD BookScan, which tracks around 85% of retail sales, the top sellers weren’t even the books being withdrawn.
“The Cat in the Hat” sold more than 100,000 copies, compared with just 17,000 in the previous week.
“Green Eggs and Ham” topped 90,000 copies, and “One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish” sold around 88,000.
Factory fire in Egypt: A fire at a garment factory near Cairo on Thursday killed at least 20 people and injured 24, officials said, the latest such incident in Egypt where safety standards and fire regulations are poorly enforced.
The cause of the blaze, which ripped through the four-story plant in Obour, an outlying district of the greater area around the Egyptian capital, was not immediately known, according to a statement released by the government.
Fifteen firefighting vehicles were dispatched to the scene to put down the blaze while ambulances were ferrying the casualties to nearby hospitals, the statement said. It added that a team of experts was looking into the damage and trying to assess the impact the fire might have had on any of the adjacent buildings in the area.
Deadly bus accident: A tourist bus plunged into a ravine on Indonesia’s main island of Java after its brakes apparently malfunctioned, killing at least 27 people and injuring 39 others, police and rescuers said Thursday.
The bus was carrying a group of Islamic junior high school students, teachers and parents from the West Java province town of Subang when the accident happened late Wednesday on a winding road, said local police Chief Eko Prasetyo Robbyanto.
He said the bus was on its way back to Subang from a pilgrimage site in the province’s Tasikmalaya district when it plunged into the 65-foot-deep ravine after the driver lost control of the vehicle in an area with a number of sharp declines in the Sumedang district.
$69.4M for digital art: Christie’s says it has auctioned off a digital collage by an artist named Beeple for nearly $70 million, in an unprecedented sale of a digital artwork that fetched more money than physical works by many better-known artists.
The piece, titled “Everydays: The First 5,000 Days,” sold for $69.4 million in an online auction, “positioning him among the top three most valuable living artists,” Christie’s said Thursday via Twitter.
Christie’s said it also marks the first time a major auction house has offered a digital-only artwork with a non-fungible token as a guarantee of its authenticity, as well as the first time cryptocurrency has been used to pay for an artwork at auction.
Beeple, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, responded to the sale with an expletive on Twitter.
“Artists have been using hardware and software to create artwork and distribute it on the internet for the last 20+ years but there was never a real way to truly own and collect it,” Beeple said in a statement released by Christie’s. “With NFT’s that has now changed. “I believe we are witnessing the beginning of the next chapter in art history, digital art.”
Christie’s did not identify the buyer of the artwork, which consists of 5,000 individual digital pictures stitched together that Beeple created — one each day — since May 2007.