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Prince Harry and his wife Meghan on Friday joined the royal family for their first public appearance in Britain in two years, at a Platinum Jubilee service for Queen Elizabeth II’s record-breaking 70 years on the throne.

But the 96-year-old monarch was a noticeable absentee, pulling out after making two public appearances on the Buckingham Palace balcony on the first of four days of celebrations on Thursday.

In the evening, she was also at Windsor Castle for a ceremony to light beacons across the country and the Commonwealth of 54 nations that she also heads.

Royal officials said the appearances had left her in “some discomfort” and on Friday confirmed she will not attend the showpiece flat-racing event The Derby at Epsom on Saturday.

The queen, a keen horseracing fan and breeder, has only missed The Derby three times in her reign, most recently in 2020 when spectators were barred due to Covid.

She has increasingly battled difficulties standing and walking since last October, when she made an unscheduled overnight stay in hospital.

A rash of cancelled engagements has stoked concerns about her health, focusing attention on the succession and the future of the monarchy without her.

There will now be questions about what other events she will attend at the celebrations, which include a pop concert on Saturday and a huge public parade on Sunday.

– ‘Staying the course’ –

At the service at St Paul’s Cathedral in central London, the Church of England’s second highest ranking cleric, Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell, thanked the queen for “staying the course”.

“Your long reign reflects the distance of Aintree rather than the sprints of Epsom,” he told the congregation, referring to the Grand National jumps course near Liverpool.

“We are sorry that you are not here with us this morning but we are so glad you are still in the saddle and… that there is still more to come.”

Outside the domed 17th century cathedral, royal fan Stephanie Stitt, 35, said she was “a little” disappointed the queen had withdrawn.

But the events manager added: “It’s understandable because she’s 96.”

The queen’s disgraced second son Prince Andrew, sidelined from royal duties over his links to two convicted sex offenders, also missed the service after testing positive for Covid.

The queen’s heir, future king Prince Charles, 73, was again the most senior-ranking royal. He stood in at Thursday’s Trooping the Colour military parade to take the salute from troops on horseback.

The 2,000-strong congregation included some 400 health and social care staff, invited to give thanks for their work during the Covid pandemic and all five living former prime ministers.

The current incumbent, Boris Johnson, is battling a soaring cost of living crisis and damaging lockdown-breaches in Downing Street, and was booed by the crowd as he arrived. 

The Bible readings, prayers and hymns were designed to reflect on and recognise what the palace said was the queen’s “lifetime of service”.

– Cheers –

Harry and Meghan, formally known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, arrived mostly to cheers from the crowd outside St Paul’s Cathedral.

Former British Army captain Harry, 37, was dressed in a morning suit, complete with military medals, while Meghan, 40, wore an off-white haute-couture trench coat, with matching hat, heels and gloves.

They took their seats on the opposite side of the aisle to Harry’s brother William and his wife Kate, for the Anglican service which ended with trumpet fanfares and the national anthem “God Save the Queen” plus a rare peal of the country’s biggest bell, Great Paul.

As young boys, William and Harry provided the most enduring image of their mother Diana’s funeral in 1997, walking behind her coffin after her death in a Paris car crash.

But Harry said in an October 2019 interview that he and William, 39, were on “different paths”, apparently confirming a rift that opened up after he began dating Meghan.

The pair were last seen in public at the unveiling of a statue to their late mother princess Diana in July 2021, and at the funeral of their grandfather, the queen’s husband Prince Philip, that April.

– ‘Not about them’ –

Harry and US television actress Meghan, who is of mixed race, were once hailed as the modern face of the ancient institution after they wed in 2018.

But less than two years later they quit royal life and moved to the United States, launching a series of damaging broadsides, including of racism.

The couple have set up a charitable foundation but angered royal supporters for lifting the lid on royal life in a bombshell television interview.

A recent YouGov poll indicated nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of the British public hold a negative view of them — an all-time low.

“I think they should probably just stay in the background,” said surgeon Roger Nagy, 51, who flew in for the celebrations from Denver, Colorado.

“They can do what they want with their lives but they probably shouldn’t say things. This is about the queen, this isn’t about them,” he added.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed victory on the 100th day of Russia’s invasion on Friday, even as Russian troops pounded the eastern Donbas region.

Thousands of people have been killed, millions sent fleeing and towns turned into rubble, since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops into Ukraine on February 24.

Russia’s advance has been slowed by a fierce Ukrainian resistance which repelled them from around the capital and forced Moscow to shift its aims towards capturing the east.

“Victory will be ours,” Zelensky said in a video address similar to one he posted at the onset of the war outside government buildings in Kyiv.

But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “certain results have been achieved”, pointing to the “liberation” of some areas from what he called the “pro-Nazi armed forces of Ukraine”.

The West has sent ever more potent weapons to Ukraine and piled on ever more stringent sanctions, with the EU also on Friday formally adopting a ban on most Russian oil imports.

Putin’s alleged girlfriend, former gymnast Alina Kabaeva, was also added to an assets freeze and visa-ban blacklist, along with Russian army personnel suspected of war crimes.

At the same time, the United Nations said it was leading intense negotiations with Russia to allow tens of millions of tons of grain to leave Ukrainian ports to avert a global food crisis.

– Food crisis –

“I am optimistic that something could give in, something could be made,” said Amin Awad, the UN crisis coordinator for Ukraine, voicing hope that we could “see a breakthrough”.

Russian troops now occupy a fifth of Ukraine’s territory and Moscow has imposed a blockade on the country’s Black Sea ports.

The UN has warned that especially African countries, which imported more than half of their wheat consumption from Ukraine and Russia, face an “unprecedented” crisis caused by the conflict. 

Food prices in Africa have already exceeded those in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab springs and the 2008 food riots.

On Friday, Putin met the head of the African Union, Senegalese President Macky Sall, at his Black Sea residence in Sochi.

At the opening of those talks, Sall told Putin to “become aware” African countries “are victims” in the Ukraine conflict.

After the talks with Putin, Sall said he was “very reassured” and that the Russian leader was “committed and aware that the crisis and sanctions create serious problems for weak economies”.

Putin’s troops are now concentrating their forces in the Donbas, in the east, where some of the fiercest fighting is centred on the industrial hub city of Severodonetsk.

– Journalists wounded –

Fighting continues in Severodonetsk’s city centre, the president’s office said, adding that the invaders were “shelling civilian infrastructure and Ukrainian military”.

“For 100 days, they have been levelling everything”, Lugansk regional governor Sergiy Gaiday said on Telegram.

Two journalists working for the international news agency Reuters were lightly wounded and their driver killed on Friday while on their way to Severodonetsk, a company spokesperson said.

The agency said the group was travelling “in a vehicle provided by the Russian-backed separatists and driven by an individual assigned by the separatists”.

The French foreign ministry also on Friday said a French volunteer fighter in Ukraine had been killed in combat, following reports that the man died in artillery fire in the neighbouring Kharkiv region.

Meanwhile in areas around the capital Kyiv which Russian troops retreated from at the end of March, some residents are still in desperate need.

At an aid distribution point in Horenka, northwest of Kyiv, a tearful Hanna Viniychuk, 67, said she had come for some basic necessities after losing her home in Russian bombardment.

“I’m grateful for this help,” she said.

– ‘Nothing to come back to’ –

Ukrainian troops were still holding an industrial zone, Gaiday said, a situation reminiscent of Mariupol, where a steelworks was the south-eastern port city’s last holdout until Ukrainian troops finally surrendered in late May.

The situation in Lysychansk — Severodonetsk’s twin city, which sits just across a river — also looked increasingly dire. 

About 60 percent of infrastructure and housing had been destroyed, while internet, mobile network and gas services had been knocked out, said the city’s mayor Oleksandr Zaika.

“The shelling is getting stronger every day,” he said.

In the city of Sloviansk, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) from Severodonetsk, the mayor has urged residents to evacuate as bombing intensified and water and electricity are cut off.

Student Gulnara Evgaripova, 18, recounted heavy bombardments as she boarded a minibus to leave the city.

“The situation is getting worse, the explosions are stronger and stronger, and the bombs are falling more often,” she told AFP.

Ekaterina Perednenko, a paramedic, said: “I am scared that there will be nothing to come back to”.

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Former White House trade director and close Donald Trump ally Peter Navarro was indicted Friday for contempt of Congress after rejecting subpoenas by the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021 assault on Congress.

Navarro, 72, was charged with refusing to appear for a deposition and for refusing to supply documents to the House Select Committee investigating the attack by hundreds of Trump supporters seeking to block congressional certification of Joe Biden as the 2020 presidential election winner.

Navarro was taken into custody and was to appear in court Friday afternoon, according to the Washington federal district court.

The committee, which is examining whether Trump, top aides and other senior Republicans instigated or directed the attack, believes Navarro could have information pertinent to the probe, the Justice Department said.

The committee said it had information showing that Navarro worked with former Trump political advisor Steve Bannon “to delay Congress’s certification of, an ultimately change the outcome of, the November 2020 presidential election.”

After collecting documents and interviewing hundreds of witnesses in private, the committee plans to hold public hearings on its findings beginning June 9.

In a book Navarro published in November, he described creating a plan after the election, called the “Green Bay sweep” in a reference to American football, to reverse Biden’s victory by blocking confirmation in the House.

He wrote that Trump was “on board with the strategy.”

Navarro, an economist, was subpoenaed in early February but did not supply documents requested or appear for questioning scheduled for March 2.

On Tuesday he sued the committee in Washington federal court alleging its investigation is illegal and it has no power to subpoena him.

But on Thursday a judge found procedural problems with the suit and ordered Navarro to refile it.

He was the second Trump aide after Bannon to be charged with contempt for rejecting committee subpoenas.

However, the Justice Department has not charged former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, even though he was found in contempt by the House of Representatives in December for refusing committee subpoenas.

Meadows has claimed that as a former top advisor of the president he has immunity from being compelled to testify to the committee.

But some believe Meadows, whose emails and text messages show he had numerous contacts and discussions with people linked to the January 6 violence, could be cooperating with the Justice Department’s own investigation.

US job gains continued in May but at a slower pace, and rapid wage increases cooled as well, a welcome sign for US policymakers trying to ease red-hot inflation.

President Joe Biden, who has been pummeled in opinion polls as prices have spiked, said the employment data released Friday showed the world’s largest economy weathering the inflation surge while maintaining healthy growth.

“We’ve laid an economic foundation that’s historically strong,” Biden said in comments in his home state of Delaware, emphasizing the resiliency of the US economy despite rising consumer prices.

“Now we’re moving forward to a new moment where we can build on that foundation — build a future of stable, steady growth — so we can bring down inflation without sacrificing all the historic gains we’ve made.”

American employers added 390,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department reported, a sign of a slowdown in hiring but still a better-than-expected result amid the ongoing shortage of workers.

Employers have struggled to fill open positions, which has pushed wages higher, and average hourly earnings rose another ten cents compared to April, to $31.95.

The pay rate is 5.2 percent higher over the last 12 months ended in May, but that is slightly slower than the 12-month increase posted in April, the report said.

That could be good news for the Federal Reserve, which has launched an aggressive campaign to raise interest rates to combat the highest US inflation in more than 40 years.

“Average hourly earnings growth remains moderate relative to last year,” former White House economic advisor Jason Furman said on Twitter. “That’s the most important number in this release for inflation and it’s mostly reassuring.”

Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics noted that the annualized rate of increase in the latest three months was just 4.3 percent — the smallest since April of last year. 

“The downshift from the 6.1 percent peak in January is clear, and the rate will slow further,” he said, which “will bring a sigh of relief at the Fed.”

The US central bank began raising the benchmark borrowing rate in March and has made clear the increases are likely to continue the rest of the year, including two big hikes in June and July that together would take the level to 1.75 percent from zero, where it sat throughout the pandemic.

Biden acknowledged that American families are anxious about sky-high prices for essential goods such as food and gasoline, which has reached a record high at the pump, and again said much of the blame lies with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine.

“I’ve been upfront with the American people from the outset, that there would be a cost here at home of Putin’s decision to brutally and savagely invade a sovereign nation. But as your president, I remain committed to doing everything in my power to blunt the impact on American families,” Biden said.

– Coming off the sidelines –

Fed Chair Jerome Powell has highlighted the shortage of workers as a worrisome factor in the world’s largest economy, with nearly two job openings for every unemployed person in the labor force as many people who left jobs during the pandemic have not returned.

The government data showed the participation rate edged up very slightly to 62.3 percent, a sign more workers could be coming off the sidelines to rejoin the workforce, which would ease pressure on wages.

Kathy Bostjancic of Oxford Economics said she expects more people to return to the job market, which would affect wages in the second half of the year.

But she cautioned “it will take time for labor demand and supply to realign, keeping the pace of wage growth elevated and well above the pre-pandemic rate of around 3 percent.”

The jobless rate held steady at 3.6 percent for the third consecutive month, just a tenth of a point above the pre-pandemic level in February 2020, the Labor Department said.

The unemployment rate for Asians fell to 2.4 percent from 3.1 percent, but for Blacks and Hispanics, the rate increased to 6.2 percent and 4.3 percent, respectively.

Restaurants and hotels that were decimated due to Covid-19 showed a strong recovery in May, adding 84,000 positions, the data showed. The sector is still down 1.3 million jobs compared to the pre-pandemic level.

Jobs in business services increased by 75,000, and the government added 57,000, but retail employment fell by nearly 61,000, the report said.

US President Joe Biden confirmed Friday he was considering a trip to Saudi Arabia, which would be a stark reversal after he called for the kingdom to be made a pariah state.

The New York Times and other US media, quoting anonymous sources, have reported that Biden would go ahead with the long-rumored Saudi stop during an upcoming overseas tour.

The reported decision came shortly after Saudi Arabia addressed two of Biden’s priorities by agreeing to a production hike in oil — which could help tame rocketing US inflation — and helping extend a truce in war-battered Yemen.

“I’m not sure when I’m going,” Biden said when asked about reports of an imminent visit. “There is a possibility that I would be going to meet with both the Israelis and some Arab countries at the time.”

“Saudi Arabia would be included in that if I did go, but I have no direct plans at the moment,” Biden told reporters.

CNN said that Biden would meet Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, 36-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who was accused by US intelligence of ordering the 2018 murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The trip would reportedly happen around the time Biden travels to a NATO summit in Spain and Group of Seven summit in Germany later this month.

He is also widely expected to travel to Israel where, as in Saudi Arabia, he is sure to face pointed questions about slow-moving US diplomacy with the two countries’ rival, Iran.

While running for president, Biden called for Saudi leaders to be treated as “the pariah that they are” after the ultraconservative kingdom’s chummy relationship with his predecessor Donald Trump.

Trump had largely shielded Saudi Arabia from consequences after Khashoggi, a US resident who wrote critically about Crown Prince Mohammed in The Washington Post, was lured into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul where he was strangled and dismembered.

Trump’s son-in-law and top aide, Jared Kushner, had developed a close bond with the prince known by his initials “MBS,” reportedly conversing with him over WhatsApp chats.

They were just four words written in haste on a TV camera, but Coco Gauff has already left a lasting impression on the French Open regardless of whether or not she wins a maiden Grand Slam title on Saturday.

The 18-year-old, who has only just graduated high school, was widely praised for her impromptu ‘peace, end gun violence’ message scribbled on a TV camera lens after her semi-final victory.

Former US First Lady Michelle Obama was among those voicing their admiration for the teenager’s stance on gun control.

“@CocoGauff ! I’m so proud of you, and I will be rooting for you all the way,” she tweeted.

Gauff has made a habit of speaking out on social and political issues in the United States.

In the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd two years ago, Gauff, just 16 at the time, took to TikTok to protest the violent deaths of African-Americans in the US.

Juxtaposing an image of herself clad in a black hoodie with photos of Floyd, the words “Am I next?” flashed across the video.

Later in 2020, she addressed a crowd at her home town in Florida, speaking out against racism and police brutality.

She references the likes of fellow tennis players, Serena Williams, Billie-Jean King and Naomi Osaka, a well as the NFL’s Colin Kaepernick and basketball superstar LeBron James for using their public profiles and platforms.

“People always say, sports and politics should stay separate and all this. And I say yes, but also at the same time I’m a human first before I’m a tennis player,” said Gauff.

“If I’m interested in this, I wouldn’t even consider gun violence politics; I think that’s just life in general. I don’t think that’s political at all.”

Gauff knows that, although written in Paris, her words will have been seen globally.

“Hopefully it gets into the heads of people in office to hopefully change things,” she said.

– ‘Life won’t change’ –

The gesture came just hours after a gunman killed four people at a hospital building in Tulsa, Oklahoma — the latest in a string of mass shootings across the United States in recent weeks.

Ten Black supermarket shoppers killed in Buffalo and a school shooting in Texas, which left 19 children and two teachers dead, all added to the grim toll.

The deaths of 17 students at the hands of a teenage gunman in the Parkland school shooting in Florida in February 2018 had already brought the issue sharply into focus on a personal level for Gauff.

Some of her close friends were caught up in the tragedy.

“Luckily they were able to make it out of it. I just think it’s crazy, I think I was maybe 13 or 14 when that happened, and still nothing has changed.”

Gauff is at ease in the public eye having burst onto the tennis scene in 2019 when, just 15, she became the youngest player to make the main draw at Wimbledon.

She famously defeated Venus Williams on her way to the fourth round.

Later that summer, a tearful exit at the hands of Naomi Osaka in the US Open in front of 24,000 people on Arthur Ashe Stadium, the sport’s biggest, most intimidating arena, won her many more admirers.

She captured her first career title in Linz in 2019, adding a second in Parma last year.

On Saturday, she faces world number one Iga Swiatek for the French Open title where she will be the youngest Grand Slam finalist since Maria Sharapova at Wimbledon in 2004.

“If I do lift the trophy, I don’t think my life is going to change. I know it sounds kind of bad to say that, but the people who love me are still going to love me regardless if I lift the trophy or not,” she said.