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7-wonders · 3 years

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For a little over a month now, you had been dating Duncan Shepherd, and it was...surprisingly low-key considering how high-profile he was. That's not to say that this is a bad thing. In fact, it's been really nice. Dinner dates at the backs of restaurants, movie nights at your place, even just driving aimlessly and talking with each other. Over the past month, you've gotten to really know the man that many magazines refer to as "untouchable," finding out that those assumptions are all lies. In fact, you've never been so comfortable in the beginning stages of a relationship with someone before.

Which is why you're waiting for the other shoe to drop.

You're not used to things going so good for you. Work, personal life, relationships--all manage to end up going in the opposite direction of where you wanted them to go. This is probably the reason that it took three weeks of Duncan chasing after you after meeting at a work conference (you'll never forget watching this 30-something man who had been covered in Forbes walk up to a group of late Millenials/early Gen Zs and look entirely out of his element) before you agreed to go out with him. You're just naturally guarded, and there's nothing wrong with that. But, you'll admit, it is nice to be vulnerable sometimes. Especially when that results in an extremely beautiful man taking out out and showering you with attention.

Said beautiful man is who makes your phone buzz on your desk. It's 3:30 on a Friday, and you're really not doing much work anyways.

"It's a beautiful day out, are you up for ditching work and going for a walk through the park?"

You feel yourself flush, as you always do whenever Duncan texts you. Before you can respond, another text comes in.

"Too late, I'm already outside your office."

Sure enough, you look up and see him chatting to your coworker. His eyes flick towards you, and he grins when he sees that you're shrugging your coat on. "Hi," you say shyly, a little flustered that he's here in your office right now.

"Hi. Hope I didn't interrupt any work."

"You did. I was very busy staring at my blank computer screen."

Duncan chuckles, wrapping his arm around you and leading you out of the office. you turn to wave goodbye to your coworker, who is currently fanning herself with her hand and mouthing "oh my god!"

"So what are you doing out of your office on a Friday afternoon?"

"Ah, they didn't have much use for me anyways." You laugh, knowing that's an obvious lie. His uncle would make him live at the office if he had the chance. "No, I figured I could take off a couple of hours early. Lord knows I've worked enough lately."

"You sure the world won't stop spinning because you're gone?"

Duncan grabs your hand, swinging it lightly as you cross a crosswalk. "If it does, at least I'm with you." You look up at him in pleased surprise, and he steals a kiss. "There is something I've been wanting to discuss with you, though. Figured this would be a good time to do it."

Oh god. The other shoe. "You're not married or something, are you?"

"No, I'm not married."

"Thank god," you breathe a literal sigh of relief.

"Was that really what you were worried about? That you were an unknowing mistress?"

"That, and that you might be a serial killer." You side-eye him. "Verdict's still out on that one."

He laughs. "I can promise you that neither of those are true."

"So what did you want to tell me? If you're not a married serial killer."

You come to a stop when Duncan does, staring at him as he nervously rubs the back of his neck. "Um, I...I have a child."

"A child?" He nods. "Like, a tiny human that shares your DNA?" Another nod.

"I understand that this might be a shock to you."

"No! No, it's not a shock. I'm just surprised, is all."

"I've never told any of the previous women I've dated about her, because typically the fling ends as just a fling, and her safety is something that I'm very protective of."

"Your daughter?"

"Yes, Elizabeth. She's three."

You smile, the mental image of Duncan as a dad something intensely heartwarming.

"As I was saying, I don't typically tell my dates about her, but you and I are getting fairly serious and I don't want to hide such an important part of my life from you."

"We're getting serious, huh?" Duncan laughs lightly. "Can I call you my boyfriend?"

"As long as I can call you my girlfriend."

"Is your daughter's mother...around?"

"No. She stuck around for two months after Elizabeth was born, and then she left. We weren't dating for very long before she got pregnant. I told her that I wanted the baby, even if she didn't." Duncan shrugs. "I guess she didn't."

"I'm so sorry that you had to deal with that, Duncan."

"I'd rather raise my daughter to know she has one parent that loves her so much instead of one parent that loves her and one parent that doesn't care." Though he hasn't revealed much about his past, you do know that he has a complicated relationship with his family, which is probably where those feelings come from.

"Thank you for telling me. I'm glad that you trust me enough to talk about someone so precious to you."

"I want you in my life, (Y/N), hopefully for a long time, but I need you to know that she'll always come first."

Well, if you didn't think you were head over heels for him before, this solidifies it.

"If you're okay with it, I want you to meet her."

You look up in surprise. "You do?"

"Of course. I'm not going to tell you all of this just for you to not meet her."

"I'd love to!" you say quickly, not wanting him to think you're hesitant. "Would she be okay with it?"

Duncan nods. "I'll talk to her about it, but I don't see why not. Do you want to come over tonight? I can cook dinner, and you can actually see where I live."

You try not to show it, but your eyes widen. Not only would you be meeting his daughter, but now you'd be visiting his place for the first time. "Um, sure!"

"I'll text you, but does five work? That gives me some time after the nanny leaves."

"Five is great."

"You sure?" He smirks. "You look a little nervous."

"I'm sure." Duncan kisses you once more before bidding you farewell, leaving you to walk home and try not to internally freak out.

///

After spending way too much time figuring out what to wear before realizing you're meeting your boyfriend's three-year-old and not the Queen of England, you're at the address Duncan had texted you at approximately 5:05 (not too late, but also not punctual or, even worse, early). You shift from foot to foot nervously after knocking on the door of the townhouse, not quite sure if you should let yourself in.

Before you can make that decision, it's made for you when the door is opened by Duncan. He's grinning, barefoot and casual, with a tiny pair of arms wrapped around his neck and big blue eyes shyly gazing up at you from where a head is hidden against his shoulder. Instantly, your nerves melt away when you see that she's truly Duncan's carbon copy, from the eyes to the brown curls to the way she looks at you as if she's trying to figure you out.

"Hi, come in." Duncan ushers you in, kissing you on the cheek as he takes your coat. "Do you want something to drink?"

"Wine?" you ask before wondering if you can even drink wine when there's a small child around.

"Perfect, I already opened a bottle." Duncan looks at his daughter, brushing her curls back before whispering something in her ear. "(Y/N), this is my daughter, Elizabeth. Lizzie, this is Daddy's special friend, (Y/N), remember?"

"Hi Elizabeth, it's very nice to meet you," you say with a smile.

She looks up at you. "Hi," she says before burying her face in Duncan's shoulder again, making both you and him chuckle.

"The, uh, food's probably almost ready. It's chicken and rice, if you're okay with that."

"Definitely!"

"I wanted chicken nuggets, but Daddy said that's not 'date food,'" Elizabeth pipes up. You laugh as Duncan blushes.

"That's where your dad and I disagree, because I would eat chicken nuggets every night if I could."

She grins, and you feel like you just won the lottery. "Me too."

"Can I set you down, sweetie? I have to check the stove," Duncan explains. He speaks to her so softly, which is such a change from the demanding man you see when he's on work calls, or the romantic who loves to make you flustered. Once she agrees, he puts her on the floor and she immediately runs off, presumably to the living room or her bedroom.

"She's so cute," you gush once she's out of earshot.

"Yeah, she is," he says fondly, moving something off of the stove before kissing you properly. "I think she likes you."

"You can tell?"

He shrugs. "Father's intuition."

"I wasn't sure if I should have brought her a gift, like a toy or something?"

"I'm glad you didn't. My mom spoils her rotten with toys, she has way more than she needs."

"Can I help you with anything?"

"Would you mind setting the table, actually?" He points to a cupboard. "Dishes are up there."

Everywhere you look, there's signs of the little girl that lives here, whether it be crayon artwork on the fridge or the kid plastic plates in the cupboard. You smile at a picture of Duncan pushing Elizabeth on a swing as you set down the plates and cutlery, Duncan putting dishes of food on the middle of the table.

"Elizabeth!" he calls. "Dinner's ready!" You can hear the pattering of her little feet before you see her sprinting into the dining room like she's racing Usain Bolt.

"Daddy, can I sit with (Y/N)?" she asks, making your heart almost explode.

"I don't know, you'd have to ask (Y/N)," he says, hiding a grin as he looks at you.

"(Y/N), can I sit with you?"

"Yeah." Your voice comes out as little more than a whisper due to how choked up you are, so you clear your throat and try again. "Yeah," you say, louder.

You sit down on the chair closest to Duncan, and Elizabeth clambers up onto your lap. Once she's comfy, she makes grabby hands at the plate that Duncan is making for her. Your hands hover awkwardly at your sides, not sure what to do. What if you move too fast and scare her off? No, that's with wild animals, not toddlers. Yet again, the decision of what to do is made for you when she gets her plate and begins to talk to you.

Throughout dinner, Duncan can hardly eat, so wrapped up in watching you interact with his daughter as you listen to every word she says and chat with her about whatever she's deemed more important than her food. He's not sure of the last time that he was ever this happy; maybe the day Elizabeth was born? Listening to you laugh at one of the jokes she learned at nursery school and has told at least a hundred times by now, he's sure that he made the right choice in saying that he wants you around for a while.

IDK who even would want to read this so I'm just tagging a couple of people @sojournmichael @michaellangdon @xavierplympton @blakescoven @mrslangdonn @michaellangdonstanaccount

#duncan shepherd #house of cards #duncan shepherd imagine #duncan shepherd imagines #duncan shepherd x reader

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minervacasterly · 4 years

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Elizabethan Medicine and Tudor Hygiene:

“There is no concept of “health and safety” in Elizabethan England, so you will inevitably feel vulnerable when you arrive. Nauseating smells and sights will assail your senses; contemporary standards of cleanliness will worry you. People die every day from unknown ailments, the young as often as the old. Infectious diseases periodically kill thousands within a few weeks. Even when plague is not in town, it lurks as an anxiety in the back of people’s minds and, when it does strike, their worry turns to terror. On top of the illnesses, the chances of being attacked and hurt are much higher than in the modern world, and workplace injuries are far more common … The principle ideas underpinning most Elizabethan medical thinking come from Galen, who lived in the second century A.D. Physicians will cite him as an unquestionable authority when they explain to you that your health depends on a balance of the four humors: yellow bile or choler, black bile, phlegm, and blood …”

In her documentary “A Tudor Christmas”, Ruth Goodman also mentions this, adding that physicians could determine the source of your ailment based on any of these four humors, and just how did they know which humor(s) you had? Easy, they looked at your skin complexion, your hair, your eye color and any other thing that they were taught from academic manuals at the time that indicated any of these belonged to one or more humors.

As far as birth is concerned. In her three-part documentary series, acclaimed historian, Helen Castor says that the birth of a child was a private feminine affair. Men weren’t allowed unless it was absolutely necessary or if the woman or her child were dying and needed a priest to perform the last rites. If the latter wasn’t available, it would fall unto the midwife or midwives to carry out his duties. The Catholic Church didn’t frown upon this custom. They believed that if the mother and (especially) her child wasn’t given the last rites or (in case of the latter) was baptized, then their souls wouldn’t enter the gates of heaven and would be stuck on limbo for eternity. With the Protestant Reformation, people started to look down on the profession of midwifery. Before, there the usual accusations of witchcraft against these women, but they weren’t as frequent as people think. With the advent of new belief-systems taking most of Western Europe (and some of its colonies) by storm, this changed. Midwives were looked down upon, seen as agents of the devil. Many physicians scoffed at them and thought that they instead of doing of providing good service, they did a great disservice to the people they served by using holy trinkets and relying on old superstitions to make them feel good. Male physicians began to study women’s bodies -while still frowning on female anatomy- and while some of them looked at medicine with a more scientific approach, many of them were still susceptible to their religious bias (ironically, the same thing they accused the midwives of).

Yet, amidst all this chaos, some women continued to practice midwifery and some tried to bring it into the medical field by ridding it of all its superstition. What these women did that was different from their male counterparts is that they honored those that came before them, while still remaining critical of them.

Then there is sanitation. There was no health agency around this time to distribute leaflets on the dangers of poor hygiene. In her book “How to be a Tudor”, Ruth Goodman says that making fun of people with lice or bad health might have been a way to open people’s eyes. This is not an impossibility. In our world, we often use humor to open people’s eyes about various social ills so it is not weird that the same thing was being done by our ancestors in Tudor times. However, good hygiene wasn’t something that was being widely practiced in the Elizabethan period. Like her father, Queen Elizabeth I studied about various potions and kept a book about diseases and how to prevent them; but the same can’t be said for her subjects. After the smell of human waste on urban areas like London became unbearable, Elizabeth I ordered that public letrines be built on almost every corner.

Before the Tudor period there were many bath houses but due to its malevolent association with prostitution (thanks to literature -which was the modern equivalent of The Enquirer or other gossip magazines), they became less used and people began to see bathing often as something bad in contrast to the preceding view from medieval England.

As for clothing. It was important to have your undergarments cleaned often. Ruth Goodman and Lucy Worsley go into this subject in their respective books “How to be a Tudor” and “If Walls could Talk”. Even if you weren’t a fan of having a bath, people still believed it was vital to wash your clothes often. The Queen, as previously stated, took a great interest in her hygiene and bathed more than most of her courtiers and had most of her under-garments cleaned and handled with care so she wouldn’t have to suffer from lice and fleas. Looking good also translated to smelling good, so in case you had a B.O. (body odor) you couldn’t rid yourself of, people would carry special bags packed with spices, roses and other herbs that acted as perfume.

Source quoted: Time Traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan England by Ian Mortimer

Additional sources:

1. How to be a Tudor by Ruth Goodman

2. The Private Lives of the Tudors by Tracy Borman

3. If these Walls Could Talk by Lucy Worsley

Documentary links: ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inoVg5a1kps&index=9&list=PLubXsfF29GmNIOGORlQDYVIOGK2U4VsSq )

Unfortunately YouTube no longer has the Helen Castor documentary. You have to buy it on Amazon. Although it sounds like a nuisance, it is worth it. I learned a lot from it and I also recommend her books (She-Wolves, the women who ruled women before Elizabeth I & Joan of Arc).

#history #hygiene #dailytudors #elizabeth i of england

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newstfionline · 4 years

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Headlines

Global poverty rates to rise because of coronavirus (NYT) The World Bank says that for the first time since 1998, global poverty rates will rise. By the end of the year eight percent of the world’s population—a half a billion people—could be pushed into destitution, largely because of the wave of unemployment brought by virus lockdowns, the United Nations estimates. While everyone will suffer, the developing world will be hardest hit. The World Bank estimates that sub-Saharan Africa will see its first recession in 25 years, with nearly half of all jobs lost across the continent. South Asia will likely experience its worst economic performance in 40 years.

About 7-in-10 U.S. adults say they need to take breaks from COVID-19 news (Pew Research Center) An earlier Pew study found that 87% of Americans are following coronavirus news “fairly or very closely,” but new research suggests that many are reaching their limits for news intake. A majority of Americans (71%) say they need to take breaks from coronavirus news, 43% say it makes them feel worse emotionally and about half say they find it difficult to sift through what is true and what is not, according to the new survey.

Is the United States still a party to the Iran nuclear deal? (Foreign Policy) When Washington wants to sanction Iran, it seems to think it is. The Trump administration is looking to its fellow members of the United Nations security council to support the United States in extending an arms embargo against Iran, due to be lifted on October 23. Under the terms of U.N. Security Council resolution 2231, the resolution that endorsed the Iran deal, any country can reimpose sanctions if parties are believed to be in breach of the deal. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has pushed back against the idea that just because the United States withdrew from the agreement it is excluded from enforcing parts of it. “Someone suggested this is fancy lawyering. It’s just reading,” he told a State Department press briefing. Pompeo also called on the European nations who were parties to the Iran deal to join the United States in extending the arms embargo.

Bolsonaro appointee blocked (Foreign Policy) Brazil’s Supreme Court has blocked the appointment of Alexandre Ramagem as Brazil’s new chief of federal police, saying that Ramagem’s close relationship with the Bolsonaro family put him in a compromising position. Bolsonaro had already been criticized for the appointment by Sergio Moro, who recently resigned as justice minister. Moro alleged that Bolsonaro had interfered with federal police investigations prior to stepping down.

Swedish authorities thinking outside the box (Foreign Policy) Authorities in the Swedish city of Lund have devised a novel way to ward off crowds for an upcoming day of national celebration: chicken manure. The Walpurgis festival is usually an all-day, alcohol-fueled party to celebrate the coming of spring, with mass gatherings and bonfires part of the fun. With no formal lockdowns in place across Sweden, Lund’s municipal workers will spread a ton of chicken manure in its central park to deter such revelry. “We get the opportunity to fertilize the lawns, and at the same time it will stink and so it may not be so nice to sit and drink beer.” Gustav Lundblad, chairman of the local council’s environment committee, told the Sydsvenskan newspaper.

Happy Birthday ‘Colonel’ Tom (Reuters) British World War Two veteran Captain Tom Moore, who has become a national hero after raising almost 30 million pounds for charities that help front-line National Health Service staff, celebrates his 100th birthday on Thursday with an honorary promotion and two military flypasts. Moore was appointed the first Honorary Colonel of the Army Foundation College, based near the town where he grew up, a position that came with the approval of Queen Elizabeth, the defence ministry said. He raised the money by completing laps of his garden with the help of a walking frame, having initially set out to raise just 1,000 pounds. That figure means he now holds the Guinness World Record title for the most money raised by an individual through a walk.

Pandemic Shakes France’s Faith in a Cornerstone: Strong Central Government (NYT) While France’s vaunted health care system has staved off disaster, France has suffered the world’s fourth-biggest death toll—now at 23,660 official deaths, behind the United States, Italy and Spain—a consequence, critics say, of the central government’s failure to anticipate the onslaught of the contagion. That failure and a critical shortage of masks and testing kits—also resulting from gaps in state policies—led to the virus’s rapid early spread, prompting France to impose one of the word’s strictest nationwide lockdowns, now in its seventh week. Prime Minister Édouard Philippe announced a tentative plan on Monday to gradually reopen the country starting on May 11. But it was not clear that those steps would halt what polls show is declining confidence in the government’s handling of the pandemic. “Trust in the state has been eroding for some time, since the state is no longer able to respond to the need for security,” said Phillipe Laurent, the mayor of Sceaux and the secretary general of the Association of Mayors of France.

In lockdown, Swiss turn to snooping and snitching (Reuters) A mother checking on her ex-husband’s sexual habits to protect their asthmatic child; a retiree frustrated with a neighbour who talks loudly on late-night conference calls; a woman angry with a family downstairs for hosting large play dates. These are all client requests made to a Swiss private detective since the country imposed coronavirus confinement measures six weeks ago. Christian Sideris, founder of Seeclop, a six-man detective agency in Geneva, has refused all but one of them, urging his callers to seek other solutions in extraordinary times, but the requests reveal the mounting frustration of living together. “We have a lot of these types of cases because people are confined and on top of each other all day,” he said. Normally, Sideris gets between two and four requests a year for such cases. Since lockdown began, he has had two a week. The Swiss are known for complaining about their neighbours, often using rules designed to keep the noise down. These are rigorously enforced in Geneva, where 16th Century protestant reformer John Calvin banned instrumental music when he was in charge.

Greece Has ‘Defied the Odds’ in the Pandemic (NYT) For years, Greece has been seen as one of the European Union’s most troubled members, weighed down by a financial crisis, corruption and political instability. But in the coronavirus pandemic, the country has emerged as a welcome surprise: its outbreak appears to be far more limited than what was expected. As the virus spread across Europe, many Greeks feared the worst: They would be the next Italy or Spain. After all, the country’s health care system had been weakened by a decade-long financial crisis. And Greece has one of the oldest populations in the European Union, second only to Italy, leaving it more vulnerable to the disease. But the number of reported deaths and people in intensive care because of the virus in Greece has remained a tiny fraction of what they are in many other European nations.

Taiwan Emerging From Pandemic With a Stronger Hand Against China (Bloomberg) Few governments around the world are likely to emerge from the pandemic with a stronger standing than before. Taiwan is one of them—and that’s not good for China. Taiwan was forced to contain the outbreak without official help from the World Health Organization and other international bodies, thanks to China’s longstanding push to isolate the democratically ruled island that it claims as its territory. For weeks, leaders in Taipei struggled to evacuate residents from the virus epicenter in Wuhan, as Beijing rejected basic conditions such as having Taiwanese medical personnel aboard the aircraft. Around the same time, the People’s Republic of China flew bombers and fighter jets around the island, prompting President Tsai Ing-Wen to scramble warplanes. Despite those hurdles, Taiwan has led the world in its fight against the virus, with only about 400 infections and six deaths for a population of 23 million. By comparison, New York state—with slightly fewer people—had almost 300,000 cases and more than 22,000 deaths. Taiwan’s success against Covid-19 has shown that democracies could fight the virus without resorting to authoritarian measures, serving as a key rebuttal against Chinese propaganda showcasing the strength of its system against the West.

Packed With Migrant Workers, Dormitories Fuel Coronavirus in Singapore (NYT) Singapore has seen a surge of coronavirus cases among migrant workers, after months of successfully controlling the outbreak. As of Tuesday, coronavirus cases linked to migrant worker dormitories accounted for 88 percent of Singapore’s 14,446 cases, including more than 1,400 new cases in a single day. Many migrant workers live in packed dormitories on the outskirts of the city. These dormitories can house up to 20 people per room, making it almost impossible to follow social distancing guidelines. Migrant workers around the world have been among the most vulnerable groups affected by the pandemic.

Japanese Gangsters Say “No” To COVID-19 aid (Worldcrunch) Japan’s notorious yakuza—gangsters—have displayed a peculiar sense of civic duty in the face of past national disasters, having donated money to victims of the Kobe earthquake in 1995 and the 2011 Fukushima tsunami disaster. Now, Japanese news site News Post Seven reports that yakuza bosses are publicly declining the 100,000 yen ($940) coronavirus relief checks that the government recently agreed to issue to all registered residents. It’s apparently a question of reputation as much as magnanimity. “To put it simply, it’s not worth it taking a mere 100,000 yen if people then turn around and say that I’m profiting from the country during this state of emergency. If the story spread through word of mouth, my reputation would be finished!,” one unnamed leader of a major gang told Tomohiko Suzuki, a writer and noted organized crime expert. We must assume that the yakuza bosses also wouldn’t dare leave the house without wearing a mask.

Protests flare in Lebanon (Foreign Policy) Protesters are out in full force again in Lebanon, where thousands poured into the streets earlier this week to protest the sharp devaluation of the country’s currency, which has worsened a severe economic crisis amid the coronavirus pandemic. The protests turned violent as demonstrators blocked roads, razed banks, and attacked soldiers, injuring 54 military personnel. The turmoil has some experts worried that the country is on the brink of both economic and political collapse.

#headlines #news

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harryandmeghan0-blog · 5 years

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Everything We Know So Far About Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's Royal Baby - TIME

New Post has been published on https://harryandmeghan.xyz/everything-we-know-so-far-about-meghan-markle-and-prince-harrys-royal-baby-time/

Everything We Know So Far About Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's Royal Baby - TIME

When Meghan Markle and Prince Harry announced Markle’s pregnancy this fall, they weren’t just making news; they were making history. Just as the Duchess of Sussex herself has been an unprecedented addition to the British royal family, so too will her future child become emblematic of change as a bona fide royal with American ancestry and a mixed-race heritage — a Windsor first.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex shared their good news about Markle’s baby on Twitter through the Kensington Palace Twitter account just before embarking on their royal tour to Australia, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand in October. Their royal relatives, including Queen Elizabeth herself, reacted with delight to news of the expected new member of the royal family after learning of the pregnancy at Princess Eugenie’s wedding, while Markle’s mom Doria Ragland also expressed her happiness.

Since the news broke, Markle and Prince Harry haven’t been shy about what Harry called their “upcoming baby” and “our little bump,” thanks to their many engagements Down Under. Pregnancy clearly hasn’t slowed her down so far. So now that royal fans are on Meghan Markle baby watch, here’s everything we know so far about Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s baby, including the Meghan Markle baby due date, its place in the British monarchy’s line of succession, potential name choices, and other Meghan Marle baby news.

When is Meghan Markle’s baby due?

The Meghan Markle baby number one to be born sometime in Spring 2019, according to the royal notice. Like with its royal cousins Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis — children of Kate Middleton and Prince William — the palace is playing its cards close to the chest concerning a more specific due date for the royal baby, keeping us guessing. But speculation will certainly begin to ramp up in March 2019. Spring has also been a popular time for royal baby births: Prince Louis’s birthday is April 23 and Princess Charlotte’s is May 2. (Prince George is a summer child, born July 22.)

What will Meghan’s baby’s name be?

Like with most royal baby news, information about the name of the future offspring of Prince Harry will be closely guarded by the family, and we’re unlikely to know before the palace is ready to share the name. But that hasn’t stopped the betting, with gambling companies already setting odds on Meghan Markle’s baby’s name just as they did with Prince Louis, Princess Charlotte and Prince George before. (Betting on royal baby names is something of a British royal tradition, with oddsmakers having a field day with predictions.) So far, online betting pool Ladbroke’s shows Victoria as the favored name, followed by Albert, Diana and Philip in a dead heat of 10/1 odds. (Other popular options include Alice and Arthur, followed by Alfred, Elizabeth, James, Mary, Alexander, Alexandra, Charles, Edward and Frances.) Each of the names comes steeped in royal history.

What is the gender of Meghan Markle’s baby?

So far, Markle and her prince have stayed officially mum on whether they’ll be welcoming a boy or girl to their family. But of course speculation has already run rampant, urged along by help from Harry himself: while on tour in Australia, one well-wishing fan shouted at Harry “I hope it’s a girl!” — and the Duke responded with, “So do I!” But with no further information than this one-off comment, oddsmakers have the chances of boy or girl set at an even split so far, with plenty of time for more developments on the gender front as time elapses.

How will Meghan Markle’s baby change the line of succession?

The royal family tree will get a new branch after Markle gives birth to her first baby in the spring. Currently, Prince Charles is in line for the crown following his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. After Charles, his son Prince William, Duke of Cambridge is next up for the task. And then Will’s children with Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge follow: Prince George first, then Princess Charlotte (after the law was adjusted to allow women equal status in royal succession) and finally Prince Louis, who was born just last spring.

Getty Images (7)

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex then takes his place as sixth in line to the throne. When his baby with Meghan Markle is born in the spring, that child will become the seventh in line, bumping down Prince Andrew, the brother of Prince Charles. Andrew’s daughters Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, who was recently married at Windsor Castle, round out the top ten with the ninth and tenth spots in the line of succession, respectively.

Princess Charlotte of Cambridge and Prince George of Cambridge attend the wedding of Princess Eugenie of York and Jack Brooksbank at St George’s Chapel on October 12, 2018 in Windsor, England.

Pool/Max Mumby—Getty Images

Will Meghan Markle’s baby be a prince or princess?

The future child of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry will be of royal blood by birth — but he or she may not start off life with an official royal title as a prince or princess. In fact, the new royal may never end up with a “prince” or “princess” title at all, as ABC News royal contributor Imogen Lloyd Webber explained to TIME.

It all goes back to a 1917 royal decree made by King George V which limited the expansion of the monarchy by minimizing the family members eligible for those fancy prince and princess titles. When it comes to great-grandchildren of the monarch, only the oldest living son of the oldest living son of the oldest living son of the monarch was to be afforded the “titular dignity of Prince or Princess prefixed to their Christian names.” (So today, that refers to Prince George, who’s the son of William, grandson of Charles and great-grandson of Elizabeth. Got that?) Everyone else was to be just a Lord or Lady.

But there was a snag in the plan. Queen Elizabeth changed all that when she decreed that all of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s children would be styled as Prince or Princess after all — which is why Charlotte and Louis, Will and Kate’s second and third children, have their titles.

Yet for future great-grandchildren — that means the children of Prince Harry, Princess Beatrice, Princess Eugenie and all the rest of the Queen’s grandkids — all bets are off. Lloyd Webber suggests it’s unlikely the Queen will make further changes, even for Harry’s offspring. “There aren’t really grounds for it,” she told TIME. Instead, because of remaining laws and traditions around titles, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s future baby will probably end up as an Earl of Dumbarton or a Lady Mountbatten-Windsor, depending on its gender. And if it’s a boy, he may one day inherit the Duke title — but if it’s a girl, she’ll remain a Lady, not a Duchess, unless the House of Lords makes some big changes to longstanding laws.

Will Meghan Markle’s baby have American citizenship?

We don’t know yet how the royal family will decide to go about the citizenship plan for the new royal baby. As royal expert Kelly Lynch told TIME, “No one in royal history has had an American mother, it will be fairly interesting to see what happens.” Upon the baby’s birth, “the child will be fully British.” U.S. law allows that any child born to an American parent in wedlock who has lived in the States for at least five years (two of those years over the age of 14) can be granted U.S. citizenship, even if the child is born outside of the U.S. Under that rule, Markle could grant her future baby American citizenship without a problem.

However, there’s a hitch: it’s not clear if Markle herself intends to retain her own American citizenship, or if she’ll be renouncing it in due time. If she proceeds as a dual U.S.-U.K. citizen, she would be vulnerable to an IRS audit, which could then make the royal family’s finances public — and that’s not something the British royal family has ever wanted done. At the same time, she’s not yet a full British citizen; that requires over a year of “indefinite leave to remain” status and a British citizenship test, with Markle having only relocated to the U.K. during her engagement to Prince Harry.

But presuming Markle does end up saying goodbye to her American citizenship, since the baby will be born on British soil as a British citizen, it’s unlikely it will be able to claim American citizenship as well. We’ll just have to wait and see how they choose to handle this delicate — and unprecedented — new point of protocol in royal history.

Write to Raisa Bruner at [email protected].

Source: http://time.com/5445288/meghan-markle-baby-news/

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gordonwilliamsweb · 3 years

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As the Terror of COVID Struck, Health Care Workers Struggled to Survive. Thousands Lost the Fight.

This story also ran on The Guardian. It can be republished for free.

Workers at Garfield Medical Center in suburban Los Angeles were on edge as the pandemic ramped up in March and April. Staffers in a 30-patient unit were rationing a single tub of sanitizing wipes all day. A May memo from the CEO said N95 masks could be cleaned up to 20 times before replacement.

Patients showed up COVID-negative but some still developed symptoms a few days later. Contact tracing took the form of texts and whispers about exposures.

By summer, frustration gave way to fear. At least 60 staff members at the 210-bed community hospital caught COVID-19, according to records obtained by KHN and interviews with eight staff members and others familiar with hospital operations.

The first to die was Dawei Liang, 60, a quiet radiology technician who never said no when a colleague needed help. A cardiology technician became infected and changed his final wishes — agreeing to intubation — hoping for more years to dote on his grandchildren.

Few felt safe.

Ten months into the pandemic, it has become far clearer why tens of thousands of health care workers have been infected by the virus and why so many have died: dire PPE shortages. Limited COVID tests. Sparse tracking of viral spread. Layers of flawed policies handed down by health care executives and politicians, and lax enforcement by government regulators.

All of those breakdowns, across cities and states, have contributed to the deaths of more than 2,900 health care workers, a nine-month investigation by over 70 reporters at KHN and The Guardian has found. This number is far higher than that reported by the U.S. government, which does not have a comprehensive national count of health care workers who’ve died of COVID-19.

The fatalities have skewed young, with the majority of victims under age 60 in the cases for which there is age data. People of color have been disproportionately affected, accounting for about 65% of deaths in cases in which there is race and ethnicity data. After conducting interviews with relatives and friends of around 300 victims, KHN and The Guardian learned that one-third of the fatalities involved concerns over inadequate personal protective equipment.

Many of the deaths occurred in New York and New Jersey, and significant numbers also died in Southern and Western states as the pandemic wore on.

Workers at well-funded academic medical centers — hubs of policymaking clout and prestigious research — were largely spared. Those who died tended to work in less prestigious community hospitals like Garfield, nursing homes and other health centers in roles in which access to critical information was low and patient contact was high.

Garfield Medical Center and its parent company, AHMC Healthcare, did not respond to multiple calls or emails regarding workers’ concerns and circumstances leading to the worker deaths.

So as 2020 draws to a close, we ask: Did so many of the nation’s health care workers have to die?

New York’s Warning for the Nation

The seeds of the crisis can be found in New York and the surrounding cities and suburbs. It was the region where the profound risks facing medical staff became clear. And it was here where the most died.

As the pandemic began its U.S. surge, city paramedics were out in force, their sirens cutting through eerily empty streets as they rushed patients to hospitals. Carlos Lizcano, a blunt Queens native who had been with the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) for two decades, was one of them.

He was answering four to five cardiac arrest calls every shift. Normally he would have fielded that many in a month. He remembered being stretched so thin he had to enlist a dying man’s son to help with CPR. On another call, he did chest compressions on a 33-year-old woman as her two small children stood in the doorway of a small apartment.

“I just have this memory of those kids looking at us like, ‘What’s going on?’”

After the young woman died, Lizcano went outside and punched the ambulance in frustration and grief.

The personal risks paramedics faced were also grave.

More than 40% of emergency medical service workers in the FDNY went on leave for confirmed or suspected coronavirus during the first three months of the pandemic, according to a study by the department’s chief medical officer and others.

In fact, health care workers were three times more likely than the general public to get COVID-19, other researchers found. And the risks were not equally spread among medical professions. Initially, CDC guidelines were written to afford the highest protection to workers in a hospital’s COVID-19 unit.

Yet months later, it was clear that the doctors initially thought to be at most risk — anesthesiologists and those working in the intensive care unit — were among the least likely to die. This could be due to better personal protective equipment or patients being less infectious by the time they reach the ICU.

Instead, scientists discovered that “front door” health workers like paramedics and those in acute-care “receiving” roles — such as in the emergency room — were twice as likely as other health care workers to be hospitalized with COVID-19.

For FDNY’s first responders, part of the problem was having to ration and reuse masks. Workers were blind to an invisible threat that would be recognized months later: The virus spread rapidly from pre-symptomatic people and among those with no symptoms at all.

In mid-March, Lizcano was one of thousands of FDNY first responders infected with COVID-19.

At least four of them died, city records show. They were among the 679 health care workers who have died in New York and New Jersey to date, most at the height of the terrible first wave of the virus.

“Initially, we didn’t think it was this bad,” Lizcano said, recalling the confusion and chaos of the early pandemic. “This city wasn’t prepared.”

Neither was the rest of the country.

An Elusive Enemy

The virus continued to spread like a ghost through the nation and proved deadly to workers who were among the first to encounter sick patients in their hospital or nursing home. One government agency had a unique vantage point into the problem but did little to use its power to cite employers — or speak out about the hazards.

Health employers had a mandate to report worker deaths and hospitalizations to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

When they did so, the report went to an agency headed by Eugene Scalia, son of conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia who died in 2016. The younger Scalia had spent part of his career as a corporate lawyer fighting the very agency he was charged with leading.

Its inspectors have documented instances in which some of the most vulnerable workers — those with low information and high patient contact — faced incredible hazards, but OSHA’s staff did little to hold employers to account.

Beaumont, Texas, a town near the Louisiana border, was largely untouched by the pandemic in early April.

That’s when a 56-year-old physical therapy assistant at Christus Health’s St. Elizabeth Hospital named Danny Marks called in sick with a fever and body aches, federal OSHA records show.

He told a human resources employee that he’d been in the room of a patient who was receiving a breathing treatment — the type known as the most hazardous to health workers. The CDC advises that N95 respirators be used by all in the room for the so-called aerosol-generating procedures. (A facility spokesperson said the patient was not known or suspected to have COVID at the time Marks entered the room.)

Marks went home to self-isolate. By April 17, he was dead.

The patient whose room Marks entered later tested positive for COVID-19. And an OSHA investigation into Marks’ death found there was no sign on the door to warn him that a potentially infected patient was inside, nor was there a cart outside the room where he could grab protective gear.

The facility did not have a universal masking policy in effect when Marks went in the room, and it was more than likely that he was not wearing any respiratory protection, according to a copy of the report obtained through a public records request. Twenty-one more employees contracted COVID by the time he died.

“He was a beloved gentleman and friend and he is missed very much,” Katy Kiser, Christus’ public relations director, told KHN.

OSHA did not issue a citation to the facility, instead recommending safety changes.

The agency logged nearly 8,700 complaints from health care workers in 2020. Yet Harvard researchers found that some of those desperate pleas for help, often decrying shortages of PPE, did little to forestall harm. In fact, they concluded that surges in those complaints preceded increases in deaths among working-age adults 16 days later.

One report author, Peg Seminario, blasted OSHA for failing to use its power to get employers’ attention about the danger facing health workers. She said issuing big fines in high-profile cases can have a broad impact — except OSHA has not done so.

“There’s no accountability for failing to protect workers from exposure to this deadly virus,” said Seminario, a former union health and safety official.

Desperate for Safety Gear

There was little outward sign this summer that Garfield Medical Center was struggling to contain COVID-19. While Medicare has forced nursing homes to report staff infections and deaths, no such requirement applies to hospitals.

More 'Lost on the Frontline' Stories

Yet as the focus of the pandemic moved from the East Coast in the spring to Southern and Western states, health care worker deaths climbed. And behind the scenes at Garfield, workers were dealing with a lack of equipment meant to keep them safe.

Complaints to state worker-safety officials filed in March and April said Garfield Medical Center workers were asked to reuse the same N95 respirator for a week. Another complaint said workers ran out of medical gowns and were directed to use less-protective gowns typically provided to patients.

Staffers were shaken by the death of Dawei Liang. And only after his death and a rash of infections did Garfield provide N95 masks to more workers and put up plastic tarps to block a COVID unit from an adjacent ward. Yet this may have been too late.

The coronavirus can easily spread to every corner of a hospital. Researchers in South Africa traced a single ER patient to 119 cases in a hospital — 80 among staff members. Those included 62 nurses from neurology, surgical and general medical units that typically would not have housed COVID patients.

By late July, Garfield cardiac and respiratory technician Thong Nguyen, 73, learned he was COVID-positive days after he collapsed at work. Nguyen loved his job and was typically not one to complain, said his youngest daughter, Dinh Kozuki. A 34-year veteran at the hospital, he was known for conducting medical tests in multiple languages. His colleagues teased him, saying he was never going to retire.

Kozuki said her father spoke up in March about the rationing of protective gear, but his concerns were not allayed.

The PPE problems at Garfield were a symptom of a broader problem. As the virus spread around the nation, chronic shortages of protective gear left many workers in community-based settings fatally exposed. Nearly 1 in 3 family members or friends of around 300 health care workers interviewed by KHN or The Guardian expressed concerns about a fallen workers’ PPE.

Health care workers’ labor unions asked for the more-protective N95 respirators when the pandemic began. But Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines said the unfitted surgical masks worn by workers who feed, bathe and lift COVID patients were adequate amid supply shortages.

Mary Turner, an ICU nurse and president of the Minnesota Nurses Association, said she protested alongside nurses all summer demanding better protective gear, which she said was often kept from workers because of supply-chain shortages and the lack of political will to address them.

“It shouldn’t have to be that way,” Turner said. “We shouldn’t have to beg on the streets for protection during a pandemic.”

At Garfield, it was even hard to get tested. Critical care technician Tony Ramirez said he started feeling ill on July 12. He had an idea of how he might have been exposed: He’d cleaned up urine and feces of a patient suspected of having COVID-19 and worked alongside two staffers who also turned out to be COVID-positive. At the time, he’d been wearing a surgical mask and was worried it didn’t protect him.

Yet he was denied a free test at the hospital, and went on his own time to Dodger Stadium to get one. His positive result came back a few days later.

As Ramirez rested at home, he texted Alex Palomo, 44, a Garfield medical secretary who was also at home with COVID-19, to see how he was doing. Palomo was the kind of man who came to many family parties but would often slip away unseen. A cousin finally asked him about it: Palomo said he just hated to say goodbye.

Palomo would wear only a surgical mask when he would go into the rooms of patients with flashing call lights, chat with them and maybe bring them a refill of water, Ramirez said.

Ramirez said Palomo had no access to patient charts, so he would not have known which patients had COVID-19: “In essence, he was helping blindly.”

Palomo never answered the text. He died of COVID-19 on Aug. 14.

And Thong Nguyen had fared no better. His daughter, a hospital pharmacist in Fresno, had pressed him to go on a ventilator after seeing other patients survive with the treatment. It might mean he could retire and watch his grandkids grow up. But it made no difference.

“He definitely should not have passed [away],” Kozuki said.

Nursing Homes Devastated

During the summer, as nursing homes recovered from their spring surge, Heather Pagano got a new assignment. The Doctors Without Borders adviser on humanitarianism had been working in cholera clinics in Nigeria. In May, she arrived in southeastern Michigan to train nursing home staffers on optimal infection-control techniques.

Federal officials required worker death reports from nursing homes, which by December tallied more than 1,100 fatalities. Researchers in Minnesota found particular hazards for these health workers, concluding they were the ones most at risk of getting COVID-19.

Pagano learned that staffers were repurposing trash bin liners and going to the local Sherwin-Williams store for painting coveralls to backfill shortages of medical gowns. The least-trained clinical workers — nursing assistants — were doing the most hazardous jobs, turning and cleaning patients, and brushing their teeth.

She said nursing home leaders were shuffling reams of federal, state and local guidelines yet had little understanding of how to stop the virus from spreading.

“No one sent trainers to show people what to do, practically speaking,” she said.

As the pandemic wore on, nursing homes reported staff shortages getting worse by the week: Few wanted to put their lives on the line for $13 an hour, the wage for nursing assistants in many parts of the U.S.

The organization GetusPPE, formed by doctors to address shortages, saw almost all requests for help were coming from nursing homes, doctors’ offices and other non-hospital facilities. Only 12% of the requests could be fulfilled, its October report said.

And a pandemic-weary and science-wary public has fueled the virus’s spread. In fact, whether or not a nursing home was properly staffed played only a small role in determining its susceptibility to a lethal outbreak, University of Chicago public health professor Tamara Konetzka found. The crucial factor was whether there was widespread viral transmission in the surrounding community.

“In the end, the story has pretty much stayed the same,” Konetzka said. “Nursing homes in virus hot spots are at high risk and there’s very little they can do to keep the virus out.”

The Vaccine Arrives

From March through November, 40 complaints were filed about the Garfield Medical Center with the California Department of Public Health, nearly three times the statewide average for the time. State officials substantiated 11 complaints and said they are part of an ongoing inspection.

For Thanksgiving, AHMC Healthcare Chairman Jonathan Wu sent hospital staffers a letter thanking “frontline healthcare workers who continue to serve, selflessly exposing themselves to the virus so that others may cope, recover and survive.”

The letter made no mention of the workers who had died. “A lot of people were upset by that,” said critical care technician Melissa Ennis. “I was upset.”

By December, all workers were required to wear an N95 respirator in every corner of the hospital, she said. Ennis said she felt unnerved taking it off. She took breaks to eat and drink in her car.

Garfield said on its website that it is screening patients for the virus and will “implement infection prevention and control practices to protect our patients, visitors, and staff.”

On Dec. 9, Ennis received notice that the vaccine was on its way to Garfield. Nationwide, the vaccine brought health workers relief from months of tension. Nurses and doctors posted photos of themselves weeping and holding their small children.

At the same time, it proved too late for some. A new surge of deaths drove the toll among health workers to more than 2,900.

And before Ennis could get the shot, she learned she would have to wait at least a few more days, until she could get a COVID test.

She found out she’d been exposed to the virus by a colleague.

Shoshana Dubnow and Anna Sirianni contributed to this report.

Video by Hannah Norman; Web production by Lydia Zuraw.

This story is part of “Lost on the Frontline,” an ongoing project from The Guardian and Kaiser Health News that aims to document the lives of health care workers in the U.S. who die from COVID-19, and to investigate why so many are victims of the disease. If you have a colleague or loved one we should include, please share their story.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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This story can be republished for free (details).

As the Terror of COVID Struck, Health Care Workers Struggled to Survive. Thousands Lost the Fight. published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

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stephenmccull · 3 years

Text

As the Terror of COVID Struck, Health Care Workers Struggled to Survive. Thousands Lost the Fight.

This story also ran on The Guardian. It can be republished for free.

Patients showed up COVID-negative but some still developed symptoms a few days later. Contact tracing took the form of texts and whispers about exposures.

Few felt safe.

Many of the deaths occurred in New York and New Jersey, and significant numbers also died in Southern and Western states as the pandemic wore on.

Garfield Medical Center and its parent company, AHMC Healthcare, did not respond to multiple calls or emails regarding workers’ concerns and circumstances leading to the worker deaths.

So as 2020 draws to a close, we ask: Did so many of the nation’s health care workers have to die?

New York’s Warning for the Nation

“I just have this memory of those kids looking at us like, ‘What’s going on?’”

After the young woman died, Lizcano went outside and punched the ambulance in frustration and grief.

The personal risks paramedics faced were also grave.

In mid-March, Lizcano was one of thousands of FDNY first responders infected with COVID-19.

“Initially, we didn’t think it was this bad,” Lizcano said, recalling the confusion and chaos of the early pandemic. “This city wasn’t prepared.”

Neither was the rest of the country.

An Elusive Enemy

Health employers had a mandate to report worker deaths and hospitalizations to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Beaumont, Texas, a town near the Louisiana border, was largely untouched by the pandemic in early April.

That’s when a 56-year-old physical therapy assistant at Christus Health’s St. Elizabeth Hospital named Danny Marks called in sick with a fever and body aches, federal OSHA records show.

Marks went home to self-isolate. By April 17, he was dead.

“He was a beloved gentleman and friend and he is missed very much,” Katy Kiser, Christus’ public relations director, told KHN.

OSHA did not issue a citation to the facility, instead recommending safety changes.

“There’s no accountability for failing to protect workers from exposure to this deadly virus,” said Seminario, a former union health and safety official.

More 'Lost on the Frontline' Stories

Desperate for Safety Gear

Kozuki said her father spoke up in March about the rationing of protective gear, but his concerns were not allayed.

“It shouldn’t have to be that way,” Turner said. “We shouldn’t have to beg on the streets for protection during a pandemic.”

Yet he was denied a free test at the hospital, and went on his own time to Dodger Stadium to get one. His positive result came back a few days later.

Palomo would wear only a surgical mask when he would go into the rooms of patients with flashing call lights, chat with them and maybe bring them a refill of water, Ramirez said.

Ramirez said Palomo had no access to patient charts, so he would not have known which patients had COVID-19: “In essence, he was helping blindly.”

Palomo never answered the text. He died of COVID-19 on Aug. 14.

“He definitely should not have passed [away],” Kozuki said.

Nursing Homes Devastated

She said nursing home leaders were shuffling reams of federal, state and local guidelines yet had little understanding of how to stop the virus from spreading.

“No one sent trainers to show people what to do, practically speaking,” she said.

“In the end, the story has pretty much stayed the same,” Konetzka said. “Nursing homes in virus hot spots are at high risk and there’s very little they can do to keep the virus out.”

The Vaccine Arrives

The letter made no mention of the workers who had died. “A lot of people were upset by that,” said critical care technician Melissa Ennis. “I was upset.”

By December, all workers were required to wear an N95 respirator in every corner of the hospital, she said. Ennis said she felt unnerved taking it off. She took breaks to eat and drink in her car.

Garfield said on its website that it is screening patients for the virus and will “implement infection prevention and control practices to protect our patients, visitors, and staff.”

At the same time, it proved too late for some. A new surge of deaths drove the toll among health workers to more than 2,900.

And before Ennis could get the shot, she learned she would have to wait at least a few more days, until she could get a COVID test.

She found out she’d been exposed to the virus by a colleague.

Shoshana Dubnow and Anna Sirianni contributed to this report.Video by Hannah NormanWeb production by Lydia Zuraw

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

As the Terror of COVID Struck, Health Care Workers Struggled to Survive. Thousands Lost the Fight. published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

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thechasefiles · 5 years

Text

The Chase Files Daily Newscap 16/10/2019

Good Morning #realdreamchasers. Here is your daily news cap for Wednesday, October 16th, 2019. There is a lot to read and digest so take your time. Remember you can read full articles via Barbados Government Information Service (BGIS), Barbados Today (BT), or by purchasing a Mid-Week Nation Newspaper (MWN).

PM TELLS SQUATTERS NOT TO FEAR – Have no fear, the squatters at Rock Hall, St Philip, have been told. This message came yesterday from Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, who said Government remained committed to solving the problem and would do so in a fair, reasonable and humane manner. Mottley explained that residents who were served with enforcement notices last week did not need to become anxious, as it was just another step toward a solution. The notices, placed on more than 20 houses, take effect on November 13. They gave the squatters two weeks from that date to remove their houses and all building materials from the land, as well as leave the property in the condition it was before the structure was built. (PR/BGIS)

NURSES WELCOME MOTTLEY’S MOVE – The Barbados Nurses Association says it is happy that nurses are finally to receive their due. President Joannah Waterman said she was heartened by Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley’s recent response in relation to matters including the low morale of nurses. “The nurses are very aggrieved and morale is low. Top of the list is the sporadic salary payments where nurses, in particular in the Psychiatric and Geriatric hospitals, were going months without pay. We have made many interventions on that matter and the Minister of Health had said it was in the hands of the Prime Minister,” she told THE NATION yesterday. Waterman said she had spoken to the Prime Minister during Monday’s Social Partnership meeting as a member of the Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados, and the word was positive. (MWN)

CRIES OVER QEH – The Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) appears to be teetering on a razor’s edge. Staff told THE NATION that a myriad of complaints resulted in a brief walkout last week. The complaints ranged from the physical condition of the plant, safety of staff and patients, to overcrowding onwards. They received support from the floor of the House of Assembly yesterday when Government MP Dr Sonia Browne, as well as Opposition Leader Bishop Joseph Atherley, rapped conditions at the state-run facility. Browne, a physician who once worked at the QEH, said her phone “has been lit up for weeks and months” with reports about overworked and unmotivated employees, patient overloads, supply shortages, insufficient nurses and malfunctioning equipment. (MWN)

QEH TOP LEVEL CHANGES – Juliette Bynoe-Sutherland is now the Executive Chairman of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital’s (QEH) board. Minister of Health and Wellness Lt Col Jeffrey Bostic made the announcement in Parliament this afternoon, as he led the debate on the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (Amendment), Bill 2019. The Minister said the move was made to create the executive chairman position, along with two other posts, in an effort to strengthen the management system to fix critical issues at the island’s tertiary health care facility. “The decision has been taken to create the post of executive chairman, and this is nothing new here in Barbados, although it was done at the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) and there was no attempt to amend the Act back then. “But we are doing it the right way. If we had gone another route Mr Deputy Speaker, it would have taken time to recruit another person. And we are at a juncture where we do not have the luxury of time,” he said. At the end of August, Government announced that a mutual agreement had been reached for the separation of former CEO Dr Dexter James from his role at the 600-bed institution. Dr James had been on extended sick leave since February. Director of Support Services Louise Bobb has been acting in that senior position since that announcement. The Minister told the House of Assembly that the executive chairman would deal primarily with legal matters, strategy and partnerships, policy implementation, communication, and general security and philanthropy among other duties. “The executive chairman will report, not to the Ministry of Health, but directly to the Minister of Health so that we cut out some of the bureaucracy so that they can get on with the running of the hospital. “We have decided to create a position called chief operations officer and the holder of that post will be responsible first of all to the executive chairman for the overall management of the hospital. In other words the other executive directors report to the chief operations officer and then on to the chairman,” he explained. Bostic said the decision was also made to create the position of executive director of Clinical and Diagnostic Services to share responsibilities with the Director of Medical Services. “And the holder of that post will be responsible for all labs, the pharmacy, radiology, infection control, outpatients, orderlies, case management, social work and rehabilitation services. The other part of the portfolio will remain with the Director of Medical Services,” he said. Bostic said that while there were some who questioned the appointment of the former director of the Barbados Family Planning as executive chairman of the QEH’s board, Bynoe-Sutherland is highly qualified for the post. He said he recommended to Cabinet that Bynoe-Sutherland be chosen to serve as chairman not because of any affiliations of any kind, but due to her experience and expertise. “We have a chairman of the board that is a qualified attorney-at -law. A person with a Masters of Science with distinction in health planning, health policy and health finance from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, along with the London School of Economics. “A person with over 20 years’ experience in direct programme management in health systems and health services. A person who spent five years in the Ministry of Health and Wellness as a health planner,” he said. (BT)

24 HOUR POLYCLINIC A SUCCESS – Minister of Health and Wellness Lieutenant Col Jeffrey Bostic is reporting that about 10 000 visits were recorded in the first three months of the 24-hour polyclinic service. Giving an update on the new health care service while delivering remarks during the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (Amendment) Bill 2019, Bostic said that majority of the persons who used the service, did so between 8 a.m. and midnight. He also indicated that an estimated 15 persons used the service between 12 p.m. to 6 a.m. daily. “We expect the numbers to climb as we strengthen the system. But that 24-hour service is seeing patients and Barbadians from all of the catchment areas in this country, particularly from the Brandford Taitt Polyclinic, the Edgar Cochrane Polyclinic in Wildey, Randal Philips in Oistins, and obviously the Winston Scott catchment area,” he said. The Minister noted that the service which started in July, still needed to be improved. He said plans were being put in place to allow physicians working with the 24-hour service to have access to radiological services so they would be able to deliver interventions. “The 24-hour service was one of those programmes that was designed not only to take some of the pressure off of the Accident and Emergency Department, but also to provide another avenue for most Barbadians who cannot afford to go private, to be able to access quality health care 24 hours a day. And that decision and the subsequent execution of that project has borne some tremendous fruit in this country,” Bostic said. (BT)

LASHLEY KNOCKS WELFARE DEPARTMENT – Former Minister of Social Transformation Hamilton Lashley is appealing to the Mia Mottley-led Barbados Labour Party (BLP) administration to ensure that vulnerable groups are not squeezed by the austerity measures in the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation Programme (BERT). During a recent interview with Barbados TODAY, Lashley advised Government to relook its social policies and review the impact the austerity measures are having on the poor and vulnerable in society. “Nobody across Barbados can accuse Hamilton Lashley of being separated from the issues because I live in the ghetto too, I don’t live in the heights and the terraces as most people would want people to think, or want people to believe. “I am right in the middle of poor people between the Pine and Hall’s Road and those communities and I hear them crying on a daily basis. Government got to be careful. I understand the necessity of readjusting the economy. But it ain’t what you do, it is how you do it,” Lashley said. Lashley indicated that one of the Government’s departments that concern him, as it related to how the needy were allegedly being treated, was the Welfare Department. “One of the places I have serious concern with, and Government must take a look at, is the Welfare Department. There are too many complaints from the poor and vulnerable about how they are being treated at the Welfare Department when they go there and nobody cannot come and tell me differently because I go down there almost on a daily basis and accompany people down to that Department. “So Government has to be very mindful and careful about the treatment coming from those persons that are placed there to deal with the poor and vulnerable in our society,” Lashley said. (BT)

SHOW US THE MONEY – Just over a year after the Mia Mottley-led Government implemented the Garbage and Sewage Collection (GSC) levy, head of the Opposition People’s Party for Democracy and Development (PdP) Bishop Joseph Atherley is demanding an account of how those monies are being spent. This morning the Opposition Leader told Barbados TODAY that he is far from satisfied with the level of transparency surrounding the collection of the funds, the majority of which is to go towards the country’s garbage collection needs. He argued that given the garbage pileups across the island, there is little to show that the funds are spent as intended. He therefore called on Government to declare how much the tax has yielded and how much has been spent. “I am not at all satisfied with the level of transparency and I think we need the quantum that has been achieved through the imposition of that charge and I think the public needs to know how the revenues derived are being utilized to address the serious problems within the system. I don’t think that there is a sufficient amount of information being disseminated to the public ,” said Atherley. In June 2018, Prime Minister Mia Mottley announced in her $1.2 billion austerity Budget, that effective August 1 that year, each household would pay $1.50 per day – about $45 per month – in GSC, while commercial premises would pay GSC equivalent to 50 per cent of their water bills. Pensioners living alone will pay 75 cents a day. Since then, progress at the Sanitation Service Authority has been labored, with only two of the promised 14 new garbage trucks arriving thus far to replenish the aged complement at state-owned garbage collection agency. In addition, with Government cutting overtime and staff refusing to shift from and Monday to Friday work week, to an arrangement of any five days out of seven, the SSA has found it difficult to fill a number of shifts. With the combination of manpower and equipment shortage, the result has been an exacerbation of garbage pileups across the island. However, Atherley contends that this does not add up, as the SSA continues to receive $28 million from the consolidated fund and by his calculation, the GSC should have produced approximately $45 million just from the revenue collected from homes. He further argued that with this type of funding available to the SSA, there should be no excuses for the garbage collection woes which the country has been facing. “I don’t know that trucks being stuck in Japan, as has been suggested publicly by various voices, is an excuse. I can’t say that the trucks being stuck wherever was an attempt to offer an excuse, but what I can say publicly is that if you are paying a Garbage and Sewage Collection tax, then there would be a legitimate expectation that we would have seen more significant improvement in the areas of services that we receive. Certainly, persons should expect better and more efficient garbage collection. So these are all questions that need to be answered,” he stressed. (BT)

UNJUST DECISION – A month after the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) decided not to hold the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) liable for compensating customers experiencing prolonged water outages, Opposition Leader Bishop Joseph Atherley is questioning the justice in this verdict.This morning Atherley told Barbados TODAY that the decision goes against the very principles of natural justice, stressing that it “could never be fair” for customers to be made to pay in full for a service that they were not receiving. “It seems to me that natural justice has not prevailed in this situation. It stands to reason that if I am required to pay you for a service and you cannot or do not provide the service, then I should be relieved of my obligation to pay because no debt has been constituted. To suggest anything else would be unfair in my view,” he said. Last month Director of Utility Regulation Dr Marsha Atherley-Ikechi explained that after several rounds of discussions between the utility company and the FTC, the regulatory body determined that based on the state-owned entity’s financial circumstances, the BWA was in no position to pay, although there is a standard of service in place. “The regulation is such that it is dependent on and conditional on circumstances. I want to make that abundantly clear,” she said. She further explained: “One when developing any type of policy has to be cognizant of the environment in which they are acting, and as such it was determined that the Barbados Water Authority, given the predicament that it was in, was not in a position to be able to provide reimbursements to customers for failure to provide a certain level of service.” However, this morning the Opposition Leader was highly critical of the FTC’s logic, contending that the BWA’s ability to deliver does not factor into the equation, but rather their undertaking to deliver the service to the customer. “This does not matter. If I am required to pay for a service, then it should not matter that you are unable to deliver because of your financial issues. This does not relinquish the BWA’s responsibility in terms of natural justice. It certainly does not absolve you of your responsibility if I have already paid for that service which you cannot deliver, then you need to refund me,” he said. Atherley did concede that customers should pay the minimum cost associated with the provision of the infrastructure for the delivery of potable water. “I suppose the argument can be justifiably made that in order to provide the service, there is an outlay of infrastructure and I think there is a minimum charge associated with this regardless of usage. So I can understand that argument, but at the end of the day the payment is dependent on the supply of the service. There may be other considerations such as drought and salinity levels but it comes back to that basic principle of paying for what you can deliver,” he stressed. Last month, BWA General Manager Keithroy Halliday made a similar case in defence of the FTC’s ruling. He argued that even though the BWA was unable to provide water through the customers’ taps, it still did so through other means and this too came at a cost. “What the Barbados Water Authority has been constrained to do is to make sure, in terms of delivering on its mandate, that even if we cannot deliver the water from the pipes, we try to supply in one way or another and we can only continue to ask consumers to continue to work with us as we do our best to try to make up for any deficit,” he said at the time. In 2017 the FTC outlined nine guaranteed and 12 overall standards by which the BWA were to be guided. Under guaranteed standards customer complaints had to be acknowledged within five working days and investigation and findings provided within 15 working days of receipt of the complaint. Breach of this standard would result in a $15 credit to the bill of a residential customer and $30 to a commercial customer. For the reconnection of service after payment of an overdue amount and reconnection fee, service had to be restored within 24 hours of the customer’s payment at BWA’s office. If service was not restored within the established timeframe, the BWA had to provide a $20 credit to a residential customer and $40 to a commercial customer. The FTC stipulated then that the BWA had to publicise a compensation policy for failure to attain a guaranteed standard of service on its website, through its customer service representatives and on its water bills. (BT)

BARBADOS VOTED FULL MEMBER OF SIM – Barbados is now a full member of SIM, the Inter-American Metrology System (Sistema Interamericano de Metrología). This follows the island’s participation in activities to mark SIM Week 2019, held September 24 to 27, in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, and attended by Minister of Small Business, Entrepreneurship and Commerce, Dwight Sutherland, and the Acting Deputy Director of the Barbados National Standards Institution (BNSI), Hadyn Rhynd. The two participated in a myriad of events, including the General Assembly of the Inter-American Metrology System that was created to promote international, regional, and particularly Inter-American cooperation in metrology issues. It was during that forum that the island gained the vote. Minister Sutherland, on his return, informed that the September 26 session ended with members of SIM, representing over 25 participating countries, voted in Barbados as a full member in the new SIM entity along with four other countries. “Barbados’ attendance at last month’s SIM’s conference in Bolivia signals our commitment to metrology, the science of measurement and the key role it will play in advancing Barbados’ competitiveness on a global scale. As we seek to repeal and replace the ancient weights and measures act with a new Metrology Act, there are tremendous economic and social benefits to be derived from metrology infrastructure and advancement. “This new Metrology Act aligns with world’s best practices in measurement. It will ensure a greater degree of accuracy, thus providing a basis for fair and accurate trade, optimization of production, fostering consumer and business confidence in products and in the development of new technologies and innovation. Metrology also extends beyond economic benefits and addresses areas such as law and order, the environment, health and safety, defence and security and leisure.” The Small Business Minister added that as a full Member of SIM, Barbados would be afforded the opportunity to keep abreast of the world’s best practices in metrology and access to funding opportunities to improve its laboratory and overall national quality infrastructure. SIM Week provided an opportunity for National Metrology Institutes across the western hemisphere to discuss and explore collaborative exchanges that have the potential to benefit the region’s metrology infrastructure. Along with its several mandates, SIM also seeks to implement a global, reliable measuring system. It further aims to promote and support an integrated measurement infrastructure in the Americas, enabling each member institution the opportunity to stimulate innovation, competitiveness, trade, consumer safety and sustainable development, as they effectively participate in the international metrology community. In April 2019, when the BNSI made a formal application for admission to the SIM to be an active member, it joined 27 other National Metrology Institutes. In so doing, the BNSI is afforded the right, among other things, to have voting privileges at General Assembly meetings; nominate or be nominated as candidates for the different positions in SIM; access SIM official documents, including by-laws; request and receive support available through SIM-funded projects to take part in SIM activities; and host the Annual General Meeting and other SIM meetings. There are now 30 countries considered SIM members, where membership now makes Barbados eligible to be a voting member on SIM resolutions and to take part in upcoming support projects.(BGIS)

CTO UNDERGOING RESTRUCTURING – The Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) is closing offices in New York and the United Kingdom, and warns there may be job losses during the restructuring process. In a release today, the CTO said the New York office would be closed by December 31 this year and that in the United Kingdom by January 31, 2020. An audit of the Barbados office will also be conducted “to better streamline our operations and finances”. “Over the past two decades, there has been much discussion surrounding the promotion and development of tourism in the Caribbean, the world's most tourism dependent region. While there have been many visions, plans, papers written and philosophies espoused, there has been widespread acceptance that much improvement is needed to elevate tourism development in the region,” the release said.These solutions included marketing the Caribbean as a single brand, more in-depth research, and a greater uniformed approach to policy formulation and product development. The CTO said it recognises it plays a critical role in the changes needed to “achieve the long held view to enhance tourism's role as a tool for sustainable development among member states”. “Consequently, we are of the firm view that in order to play a stronger role in the new era of tourism development, we have to reinvent and reposition the organisation as a pillar upon which tourism advancement can rest,” the release continued. And while this exercise “will lead to some displacement”, the CTO said it would lead to revitalisation of the organisation, which is “a necessary process to ensure tourism plays its most vital role as a means to bring about opportunity and prosperity for the people of the Caribbean”. (MWN)

GATHERING TO REMEMBER OR FORGET – The Government is encouraging Barbadians overseas to remember their roots and gather in Barbados next year. This is a good initiative. However, we should correct a fatal flaw in our culture before they arrive. If we do not, then we risk reminding them of why they left. We have a conscience to guide us in deciding what is just and unjust. When we see injustice, we can either participate in, oppose, or ignore it. To prevent us from acting on our conscience, oppressors tend to define places of self-preservation in our minds, where they hope we will remain – for their benefit. During slavery, our fore-parents were ‘kept in their place’ with the threat of being sold. After emancipation, they were ‘kept in their place’ with the threat of being deprived of work. After independence, it was not the planters or merchants who wanted to keep us in our place, it was our politicians. Our place was to be at the feet of one of their approved political parties. To keep us in this place, they increased taxes at will to keep us living paycheque to paycheque, and dependent on their good graces. People in that state are normally too afraid to do or say anything that will risk them losing their jobs. Any Barbadian should be able to publicly comment on their ideas to improve Barbados. However, if those comments are interpreted as a criticism of the Minister or the governing Party, then that person will not likely get appointed, promoted, or contracted during that political administration. If the fellow offers the same advice during the other political administration, and it is similarly interpreted as a criticism of the Party, then his ‘goose is cooked’. Therefore, Barbadians have learned to resist their conscience to avoid becoming a political target. The sustainable options for people who felt compelled to follow their conscience were to either start their own business or leave Barbados. To keep us in our place, we are constantly reminded of how vulnerable our position is in Barbados. This is normally the role of dangerous political operatives. However, sometimes politicians reveal more than they intend. Consider a BLP Minister of Labour’s comments in Parliament during a parliamentary debate in 1978. “Now let me tell you this. Anything with D L P, if you breathe, you cannot eat as far as I am concerned. It is as simple as that. This is war. If your name is Douglas Leopold Phillips, by accident DLP, and you miss and approach me and I see it just in your face; no dice.” He continued. “Hitler would never feed the Americans to fight him. Hitler would feed the Germans to fight the Americans, and this will be the ball game or the Prime Minister can take his instrument. It is as simple as that.” This intention seems to be demonstrated with every change of Government, where we expect public workers and contractors who supported the losing party to be dismissed (cannot eat), and those who supported the winning party to be rewarded (fed). The Minister of Education recently noted that the cost of the schools summer maintenance program had increased from the initial estimate of $1.8M to $6.6M. On 30 August 2019 in Parliament, she described the lucky 39 contractors who were given these contracts. “We’ve been fortunate that we had a mix of contractors this year… we had some who were new, some who had been in existence for some time, and some who had, you know, who had not been given a fair share of the pie in previous years, for one reason or the other. We have therefore attempted to try to share the work across the landscape, to ensure that there is greater application of the resources available to the Ministry.” While it sounds good, sharing the ministry’s resources across the landscape does not correct past wrongs, but sustains them. When contractors are given no-bid public contracts, they seem to produce poor-quality, high-maintenance, and over-priced work that attracts complaints from the users. The best way to right past wrongs is by doing the right things. The best way of growing Barbados’ economy is to allow all Barbadians to fairly participate and allow all ideas to contend. Barbadians need to be freed to present their ideas, without fear of being excluded from participating in Barbados’ economy. Forcing Barbadians to consistently oppose their conscience can only damage them emotionally, spiritually and physically. Before Barbadians gather in 2020, our politicians need to break those chains that they have placed on all Barbadians. If those who have escaped this political intimidation are forced to relive that pain, they will likely be too ashamed to introduce their children to an enslaved people. Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at [email protected]. (BT)

MAKING SERVICE EXCELLENCE FLOW – The importance of customers and service excellence was the recent focus of a number of companies in Barbados during activities between October 7 and 11 to celebrate Customer Service week, under the theme The Magic of Service. Among the companies highlighting service excellence was leading telecommunications provider Flow Barbados, which toasted hundreds of customers across its network of retail stores. Flow also showered longstanding customers with gifts and free services for their unbroken patronage over ten, twenty, thirty, forty, and in some instances, fifty years. Flow’s customer experience team also took to the streets on Friday to give back to the wider community by providing one thousand free bus rides to the general public at the Oistins, Speightstown and Fairchild Street Bus Terminals. “Our customers are at the heart of everything we do, and while inwardly our focus will always remain on providing excellent customer service, we are always happy to go the extra mile to make someone’s day a little brighter,” said Jenson Sylvester, Country Manager, Flow Barbados. “Each year we celebrate Customer Service Week and its always inspiring to see our teams volunteer their time to decorate the stores and give back to our customers. There are very few companies who can boast of having customers with sustained patronage for over fifty years, and the same way we are proud of our teams, we are equally proud and appreciative of the great customers we have as well.” During the week, Flow’s service delivery teams also presented gift baskets and other items to customers who are physically challenged, less fortunate or who were impacted by an unfortunate event such as a house fire. “This particular initiative was developed by our technicians and engineers who are the ones working tirelessly on the road, even sometimes in bad weather and challenging circumstances. Those teams interact directly with our customers in their own communities, so we asked them for some feedback about what we could do and they came back with a list which we fulfilled,” said Sylvester. “We want all of our customers to feel valued and respected, and we are committed to improving their experience which we have demonstrated through the significant investments we have made in our systems, processes, training of staff and the creation of the Customer Experience Centre at Windsor Lodge. And the needle is moving in the right direction.” (BT)

GUIDELINES FOR TECHNOLOGY MUST BE CLEAR – Philanthropist Aron Truss says it is sad that in 2019 there are still no clear guidelines regarding the use of technology in schools. Speaking at the launch of the Wikinotes website, at the Deighton Griffith School last Friday, the Founder of the Aron and Christina Foundation said it was sad that Barbados was still waiting for policies outlining the rules for wifi and use of electronic devices in schools. “I mean everybody knows that the students have the devices and that there is this informal sort of use. That needs to be formalized and endorsed. I would like to see a little more of that coming out of the Ministry of Education,” he said. Wiki-Notes is a revolutionary website designed to assist students in Barbados studying Caribbean Examinations. It will provide students with the relevant knowledge and opportunity to learn and will be available to all. Students and teachers will be able to submit notes to the website. During the launch, Truss said he hoped that the Ministry of Education would embrace, promote and contribute to the website, which he made clear is a non-profit exercise. “I believe this would be a beneficial site. It took six people in their extra time to sort of not only come up with the site but actually have it constructed and have it live within six months. So really if the six of us can do that, I would hope that more could be done from the professionals who are supposed to be pushing our education system.” Deighton Griffith’s principal Anthony Alleyne said that if students were to become creators and to move on from being social media users to building skills to carry them forward in the 21st century more projects such as the Wiki-Notes would be needed. “We who are in education. We who are responsible for guiding them and moulding them and mentoring them, are the ones who are going to have to show them the way to use the awesome tools that they have to help them develop as young men and women, and most importantly to help bridge that gap where we are right now within schools and education and society and where we want to do. The reality is that the future will involve technology in a major way,” Alleyne said. (BT)

BIMAP FORCED TO INCREASE FEES – The Barbados Institute of Management and Productivity (BIMAP) will be “adjusting” its fees come January. This revelation has come from chairman John Rocheford, who pointed out that last year the learning institution ran a small deficit. In addition, Rocheford said fees were going up “all around” including bank fees, and it was therefore time that the institution revisited the fees it was charging for its range of courses. “We certainly will have to look at some kind of increase in the fees because as it stands right now there are a lot of increased expenditure to the institute and therefore we try at every possible turn to keep fees constant, but sometimes you have to say ‘we have to do little increase to keep things going because expenditure is rising’. As you know, we have to get similar inflows to the outflows if you want to stay afloat,” said Rocheford. In presenting his first Chairman’s Report, Rocheford said for the financial year ending December 31, 2018 the institute recorded a deficit of $59,374 before depreciation. Total revenue for the reporting period reached some $2.6 million, while expenditure increased marginally to reach $2.21 million. He reported that while training and consulting fees increased by approximately 49 per cent, there was a decrease in subventions and grants by about 6.5 per cent. “Of significant note – the net loss of $409,649 on de-recognition of financial assets. Reserves also fell by $1141,081,” said Rocheford. “The institute was able to control its expenditure by keeping staff costs steady. However, there was an increase in office administration and building and equipment maintenance as a direct result of the increase in utilities, repairs and insurance. The overall effect of these adjustments was that despite the significant increase in total comprehensive expenses, including the loss on financial assets, there was a reduction in the net loss for the year,” reported Rocheford. Further justifying the institution’s rationale for wanting to increase its fees, Rocheford said coupled with the financial losses, one of its bankers – Republic Bank Barbados – had implemented new fees effective October 1, 2019. “Fees are going up and up and up all around us and we are here trying to hold strain on our fees,” said Rocheford. He said in its correspondence the bank informed that it was increasing its fees “because of the increasing costs associated with the general operation of business accounts”. Pointing to the increased bank fees for large volume cheque processing and other service charges, Rocheford said: “we might have to start doing something about our fees too”. Meanwhile, Executive Director of BIMAP Dr Sonia Greenidge-Franklyn said as the institution considered an adjustment in its fees, it would ensure that payment plans and special arrangements with the Student Revolving Loan Fund and other services remained in place. “We have all of those things in place to help students to get their course fees paid. Yes, we do have to adjust the course fees, we don’t want to say increase because we have not adjusted course fees for several years, but because of the constant increases in the expenses we have to make an adjustment from January,” said Greenidge-Franklyn. She said the institution would also be making special arrangements for students who have started courses and have stopped. There are currently two BIMAP sites – its head office in Wildey, St Michael and its information technology training centre at the BIDC Fontabelle, St Michael. The officials reported that there was a growing demand for the range of programmes being offered at the institution, including the number of companies reaching out for training of their staff. “Demand for in-company programmes was moderate with some regional programmes taking place,” said Rocheford. “BIMAP remains committed to its mission of improving the operational effectiveness of organisations by developing solutions and building their internal capacity. The institute will maintain its close collaboration with partners, members and clients to provide realistic solutions, based on industry best practices,” he said. (BT)

ST. WINIFREDS SUPPORTING RELIEF EFFORTS – Several countries, institutions, agencies and private individuals have stepped up to the plate in rendering assistance to the recent hurricane-ravaged islands of the Bahamas. The students, staff and supporters of the St. Winifred’s School yesterday joined those efforts when they donated BDS $5000 towards the ongoing relief and reconstruction efforts in The Bahamas. The cheque was presented by students Hayley Croney and Aerin Hill to Ronald Jackson, executive director, CDEMA, during general assembly. Both students were applauded for their initiative and kind contribution in designing custom bracelets, which were sold to the school community in efforts to raise funds for those impacted by Hurricane Dorian. In accepting the donation, Ronald Jackson expressed profound gratitude to the students and encouraged them to continue in the spirit of giving. “This demonstration of kindness and love to our brothers and sisters in The Bahamas is encouraging and should be applauded. Your contribution will go towards helping those individuals who are still in shelters post-Hurricane Dorian to help them recover and start building back their lives and livelihoods”. Please find photos attached: Mrs Kim Lewis, Principal of St Winifred’s School with students Aerin Hill and Hayley Croney as they present cheque to Ronald Jackson, Executive Director of CDEMA. (BT)

MISSING TEEN - The Royal Barbados Police Force is seeking the assistance of the public in locating a missing girl. She is 16-year-old Schenai Chelsea Chandler of Date Tree Hill, St Peter. She left the home of her sister Charmaine Chandler, of the same address, around 12 p.m. on Saturday, October 12. Chandler is five feet four inches tall, and weighs about 137 pounds. She has a light brown complexion, oval face, brown eyes, and thick lips. She has a small nose, long arms, slim build, and no distinguishing marks. When she was last seen, she was wearing a short black jeans pants, a blue, long sleeve, off the shoulder shirt and brown sandals. She speaks with a lisp and has an abrupt manner. She was last seen by her sister Ladonna Chandler along Baxter’s Road, St Michael, at 1:20 p.m. on Saturday. Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Schenai Chelsea Chandler is asked to contact the District ‘E’ Police Station at 419-1730, police emergency number 211, Crime Stoppers at 1-800-TIPS (8477) or the nearest police station. (MWN)

ACCUSED WIFE BEATER BAILED – A man who denied assaulting his wife was granted $5000 bail when he appeared in the District ‘A’ Magistrates Court today. John Austin Wilfred, a 50-year-old chef and coconut vendor of Headley Land, Bank Hall, St Michael, pleaded not guilty to assaulting Christine Wilfred on October 14, 2019. There were no objections by the prosecution and Magistrate Joy-Ann Clarke granted the accused man bail in the sum of $5000. As part of his conditions he was ordered to stay away from the complainant. He is scheduled to return to court on February 25, 2020. (BT)

HOT TEMPER COSTS RAMDIN – Charles Niko Elias Ramdin will have to compensate two women – one of them the mother of his child – just over $2000 in the next six weeks or risk being imprisoned for three months. That was the ruling of Magistrate Joy-Ann Clarke after Ramdin pleaded guilty to damaging equipment belonging to them. The 35-year-old bartender of 73 Grenville Way, Cave Hill, St Michael, admitted to damaging a door belonging to Joyce Watson and a car belonging to Samantha Richards on October 11, 2019. Sergeant Vernon Waite told the court that Ramdin lives with Richards, the mother of his child, and on the day in question the two got into an argument. An infuriated Ramdin took up a bed and slammed it into the door, damaging both the door and the frame in the process. He then went outside and damaged the car belonging to Richards. The matter was reported to police and he was subsequently arrested. Invoices were presented to the court today and as a result Ramdin was ordered to pay Watson $1130 and Richards $1175.59. The magistrate gave him six weeks to pay the monies or he will spend three months at HMP Dodds. (BT)

NO BLOWS SHARED – One of the police officers who questioned murder accused Baggio Kristidi Decourcey Daniel has denied ever assaulting him during investigations. Sergeant Terry Hurdle today testified in the No.5 Supreme Court that neither lead investigator Sergeant Ainsley Gittens nor himself ever laid a hand on Daniel. The 27-year-old Daniel of Factory Avenue, Wildey, St Michael is accused of murdering Alex Romel Samuels, formerly of Jackson, St Michael, on February 1, 2012. Daniel is represented by Marlon Gordon while Principal Crown Counsel Krystal Delaney and Crown Counsel Neville Watson are prosecuting. The case is being heard by Justice Jacqueline Cornelius. When he took to the stand today, Hurdle told the court he did not strike the accused before, during or after interviewing him on February 10, 2012. He said he was not aware of any complaint which had been made to the Police Complaints Authority regarding his behaviour during those investigations. Under cross-examination by Gordon, the veteran officer once again denied mistreating the accused man. When it was put to him that he had held down Daniel while other officers cuffed him about his body, Hurdle categorically denied it. He also said he had no knowledge of Sergeant Ainsley Gittens threatening to kill the accused man. He said neither did Gittens hit the accused across his head with a book. However, Sergeant Hurdle admitted he made some mistakes when he gave evidence in the Magistrates’ Court. He said when he told Magistrate Douglas Frederick he was present when the accused dictated a statement to Sergeant Gittens, that was a mistake as he was not present. He said that was subsequently corrected while at the Magistrates’ court. Sergeant Hurdle also vehemently denied that he colluded with Gittens to give similar stories. He maintained that he was “being truthful and not hiding any information from the court”. The trial continues tomorrow. (BT)

FOSTERING LINKAGES – The first-ever Sports Science Society through the Faculty of Sport and Academy of Sport based at University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus was officially launched last night at the Usain Bolt, Sports Complex. Minister of Sport, Culture, and the Creative Economy John King as the featured speaker, spoke about the importance of Sport Development to small island states. He acknowledged that this was the beginning of something historic considering there was a time in Barbados when sport and culture could not tangle with academics. The historic occasion saw Taahir Bulbulia inducted as the first-ever president of the Sports Science Society for the 2019 to 2020 academic year along with committee members, vice-president Kavir Gaymes, secretary Tia Mitchell, public relations officer Najee Moore, sports event coordinator Jevander Richards and special advisor Dr Rudolph Alleyne. King said that the Government of Barbados recognised sport as a pillar of national identity, social development and economic prosperity. Therefore, he urged the committee not to restrict the sports science society to just the Cave Hill campus but to reach out to the broader Barbadian community to develop sports holistically. (BT)

KING AND WALSH IN, BRATHWAITE OUT OF WINDIES TEAMS – Both Brandon King and Hayden Walsh Jr are poised to make their international debuts for West Indies after being named in the One-Day International (ODI) and Twenty20 squads to face Afghanistan next month. King, 24, shot to prominence in the recent Caribbean Premier League (CPL) where he emerged as the leading scorer for losing finalists Guyana Amazon Warriors with 496 runs at an average of 55. The Jamaican also averages 35 in first class cricket and also topped the aggregates for his native Scorpions in the last four-day season with 630 runs at an average of 48. Walsh, meanwhile, who has already played an ODI and eight T20 Internationals for the United States, also made his mark in the recent CPL with 22 wickets to be adjudged Man-of-the-Series for eventual champions Barbados Tridents. There are also notable omissions with former T20 captain Carlos Brathwaite dropped from both white ball squads, left-hander Darren Bravo and fast bowler Shannon Gabriel missing from the Test squad. West Indies are scheduled to face Afghanistan in a one-off Test, three ODIs and three T20Is from November 5 to December 1 in India. T20I Squad: Kieron Pollard (captain), Nicholas Pooran, Evin Lewis, Brandon King, Shimron Hetmyer, Sherfane Rutherford, Jason Holder, Lendl Simmons, Fabian Allen, Hayden Walsh Jr, Khary Pierre, Sheldon Cottrell, Denesh Ramdin, Kesrick Williams and Alzarri Joseph. ODI Squad: Kieron Pollard (captain), Shai Hope, Evin Lewis, Shimron Hetmyer, Sunil Ambris, Nicholas Pooran, Brandon King, Roston Chase, Jason Holder, Hayden Walsh, Khary Pierre, Sheldon Cottrell, Keemo Paul, Romario Shepherd and Alzarri Joseph. Test Squad: Jason Holder (captain), Kraigg Brathwaite, John Campbell, Shai Hope, Shimron Hetmyer, Roston Chase, Shane Dowrich, Jomel Warrican, Rahkeem Cornwall, Kemar Roach, Shamarh Brooks, Sunil Ambris, Alzarri Joseph and Keemo Paul. (MWN)

TRIDETS PUT FOUR PASS USVI – The Bajan Tridents moved two points clear at the top of Group A in League C of the CONCACAF Nations League football tournament with a convincing 4-0 away victory against United States Virgin Islands (USVI) tonight. Fresh from a 1-0 win against the same opponents last Saturday at home, Russell Latapy’s men continued their brilliant form away from home at the Bethlehem Soccer Stadium, St Croix. Omani Leacock gave Barbados the lead in the 17th minute before Captain Rashad Jules doubled their advantage in the 77th. Armando “Suga” Lashley then got his name on the score sheet three minutes later before Zico Phillips headed home in the final minute of regulation time. (MWN)

COWARD EARNS PRO CARD – Head coach Roger Boyce says the Barbados team gave a solid performance at the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) bodybuilding championships over the weekend in Santo Domingo, though they landed only one title. Speaking to THE NATION last night, Boyce said the young, inexperienced eight-member team did well in the face of some tough competition at the CAC. “I am happy with the team’s showing in Santo Domingo. It was a young team and they fought well. Overall, I thought the team did well,” said. Boyce said this year’s CAC was of a very high standard with more than 300 competitors spread across the various divisions. (MWN)

QC GOES GREEN IN POOL – Triathlete Neil Skinner made the biggest splash at the Queen’s College Inter-house Swimming Championships at the Aquatic Centre yesterday. Competing in the 15 and Over boys division, Skinner won the 50 and 100 metres freestyle, 50 metres backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly, as well as the 100 metres individual medley [IM]. Green House captured the house title, collecting 403 points and dethroning Orange House, who suffered defeat by 94 points, finishing with 304. However, Kyla Beckles of Orange was still capable of making their day memorable when she gained the individual girls title with 54 points, the same as Skinner, who took the boys title. Both won six individual events. (MWN)

MALONEY TALK OF THE TOWN – Praises have been flooding in from all quarters after talented 16-year-old driver Zane Maloney won the British Formula 4 Championship at Brands Hatch Grand Prix Circuit on Sunday. Describing Maloney’s win as “right up there with the very best” of his team’s triumphs, team boss Trevor Carlin said he was immensely proud of Zane and the team for showing patience and true fighting spirit to the very end. “This win is right up there with the very best. This year was particularly challenging as we were essentially a one-car team for most of it. Zane and the team really had to stick together and trust each other that we were doing the right thing with no comparative data. It would have been very easy for us to have got lost and not delivered the final result,” Carlin said. (BT)

BIG DEBUT – More and more Barbadians are getting involved in the filmmaking industry and the latest to do so is Gibbons Creative Education. The company in association with the National Cultural Foundation will be releasing Barbados’ first musical entitled You Never Know, a musical Barbadian parable. The film will be officially available online from November 15. You Never Know was written and directed by Jade Gibbons and stars Dario Squires, Dereja Mason, Donna Gibbons-Browne, Jamal Dawe, Abigail Gall and Ki’Ann Browne. Music on the film was done by Shakiel Stoute of Spiritledd Studios with choreography by Tania Whitby-Best. The film was produced by Anika Collymore-Taylor and Jade Gibbons with editing done by Manendra Singh Lodhi. Gibbons, a graduate of Harrison College, Winchester University, Hampshire, and the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, told Barbados TODAY that she was grateful to all those who had made the venture a reality, and indicated this was the first of what she hoped to be a significant thrust into film-making that depicted Barbadian people and their lives. “I am grateful to God that we pulled it off,” she said. Gibbons noted that although it was a lot of hard work with many challenges along the way, bringing the project to fruition was mainly an enjoyable experience particularly due to the diligent crew with whom she worked. “It was mainly fun times with the production team, especially making set decorations. I must really say special thanks to my friend and advisor Bharat Pillai, who is an assistant director in Mumbai. He was with me from the beginning, advising me on how to get things done to industry standards. When I couldn’t find solutions to difficulties, he solved them for me,” she said. The film explores a number of important themes within its musical genre. A synopsis of the film highlights the character of Rebekah Bell (Dereja Mason) whose last memory of her mother is of her lying on the kitchen floor bleeding to death. Rebekah has no respect for her father Walton Bell (Dario Squires), who wasn’t home to save her mother, nor for the God he serves, who as she sees it allowed her mother to die. Walton values hard work but Rebekah values cash. So to make quick money she sells weed-based desserts. Rebekah thinks she knows everything but doesn’t know that her supplier is her mother’s killer. Life is unpredictable. You can never tell what the consequences of your actions will be. The thing you thought would break you may actually make you stronger. That decision you thought was clever may actually be the dumbest ever. You never know. (BT)

JORDAN JOINS JAMAICAN GLEANER – The Gleaner Company (Media) Limited, a member of the RJRGLEANER Communications Group, has appointed career communications specialist and journalist Kaymar Jordan as its next editor-in-chief. Jordan joins the GCML family with more than 20 years of experience in radio, television, print and digital media journalism. Her skills set vary in media reporting, presenting, multimedia editing, and media management. The appointment will come into effect on November 1. She will be the second female editor-in chief in the company’s 185-year history. Wyvolyn Gager, the first female editor, served from 1994 to 2001. Acting general manager of The Gleaner, Garfield Grandison, said that he was confident that the new editor-in-chief would work with the existing team to strengthen the company’s print and digital offerings. According to Grandison, who is the outgoing editor-in-chief, the appointment falls in line with the company’s plans to expand its engagement and connection with audiences across media platforms. Jordan has risen through the ranks of the profession, starting as a journalist for the Caribbean News Agency (CANA) in Barbados. She has worked with various media houses, including the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) as a journalist, news coordinator, and as the director of news and current affairs. In 2012, she was named editor-in-chief of the Nation Publishing Company Ltd, and later, she was appointed chief executive officer and editor-in-chief for the digital multimedia platform, Barbados TODAY. (BT)

SCHOOLS CLOSED FRIDAY TO OBSERVE TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL DAY – Teachers’ Professional Day will be observed this Friday, October 18 and all schools will be closed as a result. The Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training has encouraged the management of schools to organise activities for the development of their institutions. The day is part of activities to mark Education Month, which is being celebrated under the theme: Technology – The Bedrock of Innovation and Development. Schools will re-open on Monday, October 21. (BGIS)

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FASHION, diana, princess, styleShe’s More Than Style Icon: Princess Diana Creating a style is a whole pack. She has become an icon, not only with her clothes and accesories , but also with her sophistication, simplicity, modesty, nobleness, elegance, helpfulness and sensibility. Even after death, we still know the icon princess Diana. FOREVER a fashion icon, Princess Diana’s sense of flair is as relevant today as it was when she first stepped out in her famous outfits. Diana – Princess of fashion: How she created a timeless and elegant style? Princess Diana, also known as Diana Spencer, came from a noble family and was always in close contact with the royal family due to her family. Princess Diana (as she was known) was the consort of Charles, Prince of Wales. What seemed to millions like a fairy tale marriage turned to public scandal and then divorce, with much of the public adopting her as “The People’s Princess.” She was the mother of Prince William, currently in line for the throne after his father, Diane’s former husband, and of Prince Harry. She was also known for her charity work and her fashion image. Lady Diana Frances Spencer was also known as Lady Diana and Lady Di. She lived from July 1, 1961 to August 31, 1997. Her proper title during marriage was Diana, Princess of Wales, rather than Princess Diana, though the latter is how so much of the world knows her. Her Life Story She was born in Sandringham, one of the queen’s private properties on July 1, 1961, and spent his childhood years there. Diana’s father is said to have worked for the royal family for a time. Her mother, had left them as a child, so Diana had an introvert childhood. Her brother, the Earl Spencer, reminisced that she was ‘incredibly brave,’ even as a young girl. As a child, Diana read her aunt’s fairy tale books and was completely immersed in her life and never sent anybody into her private life, so she decided to hide herself for marriage because she was sure that she would marry someone important. In school, the future princess failed all her O -levels- twice. However, Diana had a sense that she was destined for something important. “I knew that something profound was coming my way,” she said in the documentary “I was just treading water, waiting for it” Diana, in her own words… Diana’s parents divorced in 1969. Her mother ran away with a wealthy heir, and her father gained custody of the children. He later married Raine Legge, whose mother was Barbara Cartland, a romance novelist. Diana was the third of four children. Her sister Lady Sarah Spencer married Neil McCorquodale; before she married, Sarah and Prince Charles dated. Diana’s sister Lady Jane married Robert Fellowes, an assistant secretary to Queen Elizabeth II. Their brother, Charles Spencer, Earl Spencer, was a godson of Queen Elizabeth II. She renewed her contacts with the royal family, and her friendship with Charles grew in 1980. On February 24, 1981, their engagement was announced, and on July 29, 1981, they were married in St. Paul’s Cathedral in a globally televised ceremony watched by an audience numbering in the hundreds of millions. Their first child, Prince William Arthur Philip Louis of Wales, was born on June 21, 1982, and their second, Prince Henry (“Harry”) Charles Albert David, on September 15, 1984. Marital difficulties led to a separation between Diana and Charles in 1992, though they continued to carry out their royal duties and jointly participate in raising their two children. They divorced on August 28, 1996, with Diana receiving a substantial settlement. Diana’s unprecedented popularity as a member of the royal family, both in Britain and throughout the world, attracted considerable attention from the press, and she became one of the most-photographed women in the world. Although she used that celebrity to great effect in promoting her charitable work, the media (in particular the aggressive freelance photographers known as paparazzi) were often intrusive. It was while attempting to evade journalists that Diana was killed, along with her companion, Dodi Fayed, and their driver, Henri Paul, in an automobile accident in a tunnel under the streets of Paris in 1997. Though the photographers were initially blamed for causing the accident, a French judge in 1999 cleared them of any wrongdoing, instead faulting Paul, who was found to have had a blood alcohol level over the legal limit at the time of the crash and to have taken prescription drugs incompatible with alcohol. In 2006 a Scotland Yard inquiry into the incident also concluded that the driver was at fault. In April 2008, however, a British inquest jury ruled both the driver and the paparazzi guilty of unlawful killing through grossly negligent driving, though it found no evidence of a conspiracy to kill Diana or Fayed, an accusation long made by Fayed’s father. Her death and funeral produced unprecedented expressions of public mourning, testifying to her enormous hold on the British national psyche. The image of Prince William, then age 15, and Prince Harry, then age 12, walking solemnly with their father behind Diana’s casket in her funeral cortege became iconic. People’s Princess… After the divorce, Diana maintained her high public profile and continued many of the activities she had earlier undertaken on behalf of charities, supporting causes as diverse as the arts, children’s issues, and AIDS patients. She also was involved in efforts to ban land mines. To ensure that William and Harry had “an understanding of people’s emotions, their insecurities, people’s distress, and their hopes and dreams,” Diana brought her sons with her to hospitals, homeless shelters, and orphanages. To acquaint them with the world outside of royal privilege, she took them to fast food restaurants and on public transportation. Her compassion, personal warmth, humility, and accessibility earned her the sobriquet “the People’s Princess”… Princess Diana captured the world’s attention as a royal trendsetter, but during her time in the public eye, she also became a prominent philanthropic force. Diana worked tirelessly on behalf of charities around the world, using her fame to raise awareness of a number of important humanitarian issues. Twenty years after her death, here’s why Diana will always be remembered as the “People’s Princess.” She Changed The Face Of The British Monarchy Through her charity work, Diana highlighted how royalty, which had previously been known for its stuffiness, could be in touch with the public. In her interview with BBC’s Panorama in 1995, she said, “I would like a monarchy that has more contact with its people.” This statement became something of a personal mission for the Princess. Diana was at some point patron of over 100 charities. During her many visits to hospitals, schools and fundraising galas, she became known for spending hours talking to people and listening to their stories. Although she found the media’s intrusion into her personal life “intolerable,” Diana found a way to use this to bring attention to the people and the causes that needed it most. She Made Regular Visits To Homeless Centers Despite relinquishing most of her charitable causes after her divorce from Prince Charles in 1996, Diana became patron of Centrepoint in 1992 and remained in the role until her death in 1997. Both William and Harry were taken by the Princess to see the help offered at the charity’s shelters and, at the age of 23, William followed in his mother’s footsteps when he became patron. Speaking at the time, he told The Telegraph: “My mother introduced that sort of area to me a long time ago. It was a real eye-opener and I am very glad she did. It has been something I have held close to me for a long time.” She Reached Out To Children Diana displayed a great affinity for young people and became a champion for some the most vulnerable. As patron of The Royal Marsden Hospital, known for treating childhood cancers, and Great Ormand Street Hospital for Children, she was often pictured comforting children and made a personal connection with many. Speaking about her work with the Royal Brompton Hospital, London, she said: “I make the trips at least three times a week, and spend up to four hours at a time with patients holding their hands and talking to them. Some of them will live and some will die, but they all need to be loved while they are here. I try to be there for them.” How Princess Diana Became A Fashion Icon? Although we’re well aware of all the goodness and compassion Diana, Princess of Wales, spread throughout the world, her personal style was the first thing that dazzled (and in some cases, scandalized) the public. From her early days as a young, shy assistant teacher to her public and glamorous life as a royal, Diana’s style left an indelible mark on the world of fashion. Glittering gowns, elegant suits and bold mini dresses worn by the late Princess Diana are on show at Kensington Palace, marking the 20th anniversary of her death. The exhibition charts her evolving style. In 1997 the influential fashion photographer Mario Testino shot a series of seminal images of Princess Diana wearing Gianni Versace for Vanity Fair magazine. These photographs have come to define the look and glamour of a woman who became an important fashion icon of the twentieth century. In the early twenty-first century, media interest in her image remained undiminished. From that moment the princess became an international figure, photographed and documented wherever she went, and she became a global fashion icon. Diana loved clothes; they were a personal passion but also a requirement of her new public life. As one of the most important members of the British royal family, her wardrobe requirements were fixed in a world that required ball gowns and matching hats, shoes, and handbags, items that were not typical of mainstream fashion for young women in the early 1980s. It is not surprising then that in the early years of her marriage she was steered toward established British fashion designers, including Murray Arbeid, Belville Sassoon, and Gini Fratini, whose traditions of classic tailoring for day and romantic evening wear dated back fifty years. Diana was, however, determined to stamp a modern and youthful personal style on this public and formal persona, and, more than any other British designer, Catherine Walker helped her to develop an elegant, tailored look that became her own. In the two decades since her death, Princess Diana has joined the ranks of the best-dressed women in history, maintaining her status not only as the royal family’s first ever global celebrity but also, the ultimate fashion icon. She rubbed elbows with the glitterati of the style and music worlds, including her close friend Gianni Versace, who would go on to dress her for many of her most upscale appearances (and who was tragically killed less than two months before her). And although she took more fashion risks later in her life, once she was out of the clutches of the royal family, she demonstrated a keen understanding of style from her earliest pictures. From prim British Lady to glamorous international figure, Princess Diana’s aesthetic sensibilities cemented her as a modern style icon. Photo:1971- Even as a young girl, Diana demonstrated a keen understanding of fashion. This photo, taken in 1971 at the age of 10, shows that Diana was on top of the emerging trends of the decade, including floppy hats, which would become the style hallmark of the prairie look. Photo:1981: On her honeymoon with Prince Charles in Scotland, Diana began to take otherwise staid British fashion staples like tweed into new territory, in a looser silhouette that was indicative of the 1980s. Photo:1982: Just two months shy of giving birth to her first son, Prince William, here Diana shows she’s started to adopt the aesthetic of the decade: a wide-shouldered, deconstructed coat and a frilly blouse that would become the enduring look of the 1980s business woman. Photo:1985: By the middle of the decade, Diana had settled into her public life and started to experiment with the styles of the time. Dresses like this gold-and-silver one by designer Bruce Oldfield garnered her the nickname “Dynasty Di.” Photo:1987: Compared to her glitzier looks of the mid-80s, this dress proved Princess Diana was a style chameleon who could walk the line between elegant and risque. She famously wore this same dress two years earlier for an official event at the White House where she danced with John Travolta. Photo:1989: Although designer Catherine Walker said the silhouette of this bolero was inspired by Elizabethan ruffs, the press declared this Diana’s “Elvis dress.” Photo:1992: Pictured here attending a wedding with a young Prince Harry, Diana proves that matching clothing and accessories can look very chic. Photo:1994: Diana’s off-duty style was as on-trend as her formal looks. She was sporty and classic — a look often mirrored by her daughter-in-law Kate Middleton. Photo:1994_2: By now, Diana was separated from Charles and out from under the clutches of the royal family. Her style began to take a riskier and sexier route. Photo:1995: For a concert in Italy, Diana wore a slinky white mini dress designed by her friend, Gianni Versace. Photo:1996: Diana attends the Met Costume Institute Gala in a lingerie-inspired design from John Galliano’s premiere collection for Christian Dior. Photo:1997: By the time she was officially divorced from Prince Charles, Diana embraced the quintessential body-con look of the 1990s, favouring short, form-fitted dresses with a lower neckline. The post She’s More Than Style Icon: Princess Diana appeared first on Fashion or Passion.

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