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Royal Wedding redux: This time it’s Princess Eugenie

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WINDSOR, England — It’s time for another royal wedding at Windsor Castle — but this time it’s less of a global TV spectacle and more of a family affair.

Despite large signs at the castle’s ticket booth welcoming people to the wedding, many visitors seem unaware that Princess Eugenie, granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II, will marry tequila company executive James Brooksbank Friday.

“No interest,” said Michael Taylor, a drummer from Chicago who toured the imposing castle Wednesday — but didn’t know a wedding was being planned on the grounds. “I don’t know anything about her. If she walked past me right now, I wouldn’t even know.”

Eugenie is the 28-year-old daughter of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, and ninth in line for the throne. She has lived most of her life outside the media spotlight, and keeps a low profile compared to cousins Prince William and Prince Harry and their glamorous wives.

That’s reflected in the souvenir shops that line the streets leading to the imposing castle. Royal wedding merchandise fill the windows — but they feature Harry and Meghan Markle, who also married at Windsor Castle in May in a spectacular, globally televised ceremony.

Only a few Halloween face masks feature Eugenie, though some shopkeepers say that will change in the hours ahead of her wedding.

“It’s going to be shirts and some mugs. A few people have been asking for it, but compared to Harry-Meghan, it’s not that big,” said Salman Khan at The King and Queen gift shop. Eugenie items have been hard to find because only a few suppliers are manufacturing them, he added.

“This is different, but it’s still quite good for the town. The whole town is still excited. It’s going to be a good day for everybody,” he said.

Snippets of the wedding will be shown on British TV, but only one channel, ITV, is planning to provide live coverage of the proceedings.

Eugenie and Brooksbank are following a precedent set by Harry and Meghan by inviting 1,200 members of the public to the castle grounds for a better view of Friday’s festivities.

Like Harry and Meghan, the couple will also say their vows in St. George’s Chapel, a masterpiece of the “perpendicular Gothic” style with royal connections dating back to 1475, when construction began under King Edward IV.

Afterward, the newlyweds plan a carriage ride through the streets of Windsor to give the public a chance to see them up close.

It’s not clear how many visitors will come to Windsor, a riverside town about 20 miles (32 kilometres) west of London. Part of the draw will be the chance to catch a glimpse of the queen and other royals, including William and his wife Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, and their two young children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte.

George, 5, will be a page boy in the bridal party, and three-year-old Charlotte will be one of six bridesmaids. It is not clear if their youngest brother, five-month-old Prince Louis, will attend.

Harry and Meghan, a former star of the TV show “Suits”, are also expected.

Eugenie is following tradition by not revealing who designed her wedding gown, but she has said it will be a British designer. She has asked her older sister, Princess Beatrice, to be her maid of honour.

Eugenie has worked for several years in a fulltime position with the Hauser and Wirth art gallery in London.

Brooksbank, 32, has asked his brother Thomas to be his best man. He and Eugenie have dated for many years. The couple says he got down on one knee and proposed in January during a trip to Nicaragua while the couple was visiting a spectacular lake next to a volcano.

The queen, who has only just returned from an extended summer holiday in Scotland, plans to host a champagne luncheon for the newlyweds shortly after the ceremony, and a second reception will be held that night.

The luncheon with the queen is expected to be a quiet, muted affair — reflecting the 92-year-old monarch’s advanced years — with the nighttime shindig seen as a chance for the younger generations to step out in style.

The presence of so many royals — and a number of celebrity guests — has prompted extra security measures to be put in place.

Police teams have been meticulously checking and sealing water drains near the castle, and sniffer dogs are checking for explosives in the royal-themed shops, restaurants and tea rooms frequented by tourists.

The royal family is paying for the wedding, but the anti-monarchist group Republic is lobbying Parliament to prevent any public money from being spent on security or other wedding-related costs.

The group says Eugenie does not carry out royal duties and that weddings are personal, private occasions, not affairs of state. It has criticized the royals for using weddings as “PR exercises” and expecting taxpayers to pick up part of the tab.

These concerns aren’t popular in Windsor’s business community, where the surging popularity of the royal family in recent years — and the afterglow of Harry and Meghan’s wedding — has helped bring in visitors in recent months.

“We are getting a lot of American and Chinese and Spanish visitors,” said Jag Khaira at the Nell Gwynn Tearoom. “A lot of tourists don’t even know about this wedding Friday, but it will bring in the crowds and should be a good day for us.”

Gregory Katz, The Associated Press













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Kananaskis G7 meeting the right setting for U.S. and Canada to reassert energy ties

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Energy security, resilience and affordability have long been protected by a continentally integrated energy sector.

The G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, offers a key platform to reassert how North American energy cooperation has made the U.S. and Canada stronger, according to a joint statement from The Heritage Foundation, the foremost American conservative think tank, and MEI, a pan-Canadian research and educational policy organization.

“Energy cooperation between Canada, Mexico and the United States is vital for the Western World’s energy security,” says Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Center for Energy, Climate and Environment and the Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and one of America’s most prominent energy experts. “Both President Trump and Prime Minister Carney share energy as a key priority for their respective administrations.

She added, “The G7 should embrace energy abundance by cooperating and committing to a rapid expansion of energy infrastructure. Members should commit to streamlined permitting, including a one-stop shop permitting and environmental review process, to unleash the capital investment necessary to make energy abundance a reality.”

North America’s energy industry is continentally integrated, benefitting from a blend of U.S. light crude oil and Mexican and Canadian heavy crude oil that keeps the continent’s refineries running smoothly.

Each day, Canada exports 2.8 million barrels of oil to the United States.

These get refined into gasoline, diesel and other higher value-added products that furnish the U.S. market with reliable and affordable energy, as well as exported to other countries, including some 780,000 barrels per day of finished products that get exported to Canada and 1.08 million barrels per day to Mexico.

A similar situation occurs with natural gas, where Canada ships 8.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day to the United States through a continental network of pipelines.

This gets consumed by U.S. households, as well as transformed into liquefied natural gas products, of which the United States exports 11.5 billion cubic feet per day, mostly from ports in Louisiana, Texas and Maryland.

“The abundance and complementarity of Canada and the United States’ energy resources have made both nations more prosperous and more secure in their supply,” says Daniel Dufort, president and CEO of the MEI. “Both countries stand to reduce dependence on Chinese and Russian energy by expanding their pipeline networks – the United States to the East and Canada to the West – to supply their European and Asian allies in an increasingly turbulent world.”

Under this scenario, Europe would buy more high-value light oil from the U.S., whose domestic needs would be back-stopped by lower-priced heavy oil imports from Canada, whereas Asia would consume more LNG from Canada, diminishing China and Russia’s economic and strategic leverage over it.

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The MEI is an independent public policy think tank with offices in Montreal, Ottawa, and Calgary. Through its publications, media appearances, and advisory services to policymakers, the MEI stimulates public policy debate and reforms based on sound economics and entrepreneurship.

As the nation’s largest, most broadly supported conservative research and educational institution, The Heritage Foundation has been leading the American conservative movement since our founding in 1973. The Heritage Foundation reaches more than 10 million members, advocates, and concerned Americans every day with information on critical issues facing America.

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Poilievre on 2025 Election Interference – Carney sill hasn’t fired Liberal MP in Chinese election interference scandal

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From Conservative Party Communications

Yes. He must be disqualified. I find it incredible that Mark Carney would allow someone to run for his party that called for a Canadian citizen to be handed over to a foreign government on a bounty, a foreign government that would almost certainly execute that Canadian citizen.

 

“Think about that for a second. We have a Liberal MP saying that a Canadian citizen should be handed over to a foreign dictatorship to get a bounty so that that citizen could be murdered. And Mark Carney says he should stay on as a candidate. What does that say about whether Mark Carney would protect Canadians?

“Mark Carney is deeply conflicted. Just in November, he went to Beijing and secured a quarter-billion-dollar loan for his company from a state-owned Chinese bank. He’s deeply compromised, and he will never stand up for Canada against any foreign regime. It is another reason why Mr. Carney must show us all his assets, all the money he owes, all the money that his companies owe to foreign hostile regimes. And this story might not be entirely the story of the bounty, and a Liberal MP calling for a Canadian to be handed over for execution to a foreign government might not be something that the everyday Canadian can relate to because it’s so outrageous. But I ask you this, if Mark Carney would allow his Liberal MP to make a comment like this, when would he ever protect Canada or Canadians against foreign hostility?

“He has never put Canada first, and that’s why we cannot have a fourth Liberal term. After the Lost Liberal Decade, our country is a playground for foreign interference. Our economy is weaker than ever before. Our people more divided. We need a change to put Canada first with a new government that will stand up for the security and economy of our citizens and take back control of our destiny. Let’s bring it home.”

 

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