BOSTON: Prince Harry’s bride-to-be Meghan Markle may be a princess after all.
A researcher at the Boston-based New England Historic Genealogical Society , one of the world’s premier genealogical organizations, said on Thursday that Markle is a direct descendant of England’s King Edward III, and she and Harry are 17th cousins. Edward III ruled from 1327 until 1377.
Royal experts have said that the 36-year-old Markle will not formally be known as Princess Meghan because she is not of royal birth.
Genealogist Gary Boyd Roberts says Markle’s royal lineage comes through an early immigrant to Boston, the Rev. William Skipper, who arrived in New England in 1639. He is an ancestor of Markle’s father.
Markle is also related to eight American presidents and dozens of other notable Americans, including actors James Dean and Roy Rogers.
Markle’s future noble ranking partly depends on what titles Queen Elizabeth II gives her and Harry on their May wedding day.
Markle, 36, will become Her Royal Highness Princess Henry of Wales when she marries Harry, whose proper first name is Henry.
The speculation is that the queen will make Harry a duke, like his brother William, and Markle a duchess when they wed at Windsor Castle. In that case, Markle would properly be known as a duchess, not a princess.
“It’s wrong to call a royal duchess ‘princess’ unless she’s already a princess,” royal historian Hugo Vickers said.
“But they can do what they like. I’m sure the press will call her Princess Meghan. I just hope they don’t abbreviate it to Princess Megs.”
Many royal observers think the queen will make the newlyweds the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, one of the few remaining “dukedoms” that is available.
Genealogist: Meghan Markle descended from English king
Genealogist: Meghan Markle descended from English king
Oracle says data center outage causing issues faced by US TikTok users
WASHINGTON: Oracle on Tuesday said issues faced by US users of social media app TikTok are the result of a temporary weather-related power outage at an Oracle data center, after California Governor Gavin Newsom linked the issues to what he called the suppression of content critical of President Donald Trump.
“Over the weekend, an Oracle data center experienced a temporary weather-related power outage which impacted TikTok,” Oracle spokesperson Michael Egbert said in an email.
A powerful winter storm struck much of the US over the weekend.
“The challenges US TikTok users may be experiencing are the result of technical issues that followed the power outage, which Oracle and TikTok are working to quickly resolve,” Egbert said.
On Monday, Newsom said his office was launching a review to determine if TikTok’s content moderation practices violated state law.
“Following TikTok’s sale to a Trump-aligned business group, our office has received reports — and independently confirmed instances — of suppressed content critical of President Trump,” Newsom’s office had said.
TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, last week finalized a deal to set up a majority US-owned joint venture known as TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC that will secure US data, to avert a ban on the short video app used by more than 200 million Americans. The deal was praised by Trump.
The joint venture has denied censorship, saying “it would be inaccurate to report that this is anything but the technical issues we’ve transparently confirmed.”
Each of the joint venture’s three managing investors — cloud computing giant Oracle, private equity group Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX — will hold a stake of 15 percent. The deal provides for American and global investors to hold 80.1 percent of the venture while ByteDance will own 19.9 percent.
The joint venture said on Tuesday it “made significant progress in recovering our US infrastructure with our US data center partner” but noted that US users may still face some technical issues, including when posting new content.
With more than 16 million followers on his personal TikTok account, Trump credited the app with helping him win the 2024 election.
Last week’s deal was a milestone for TikTok after years of battles with the US government over Washington’s concerns about risks to national security and privacy under Trump and former President Joe Biden.
