- 4-day workweek in UK boosts employee satisfaction, retention CBS News
- Workers report a 4-day workweek improves health, finances and relationships: It ‘simply makes you happy’ CNBC
- World’s biggest four-day-week trial sees 92% success rate—but companies shouldn’t implement drastic work changes blindly, CEO warns Fortune
- The UK’s four-day working week pilot was a success – here’s what should happen next The Conversation
- Can This Change Improve Montana’s Hard Workers Quality Of Life? Newstalkkgvo
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: 4day
Workers report a 4-day workweek improves health, finances and relationships: It ‘simply makes you happy’ – CNBC
- Workers report a 4-day workweek improves health, finances and relationships: It ‘simply makes you happy’ CNBC
- Sorry, Calvinists: A four-day workweek actually makes employees healthier, more productive Salon
- World’s biggest four-day week trial sees 92% success rate—but companies shouldn’t implement drastic work changes blindly, CEO warns Fortune
- The Express View on four-day workweek experiment: Is Britain turning European after Brexit? The Indian Express
- Shorter work weeks gain traction; UAE was one of the first movers wknd.
- View Full Coverage on Google News
The Way Of Water’ Eyes $16M Monday, $150M+ 4-day Total – Deadline
TUESDAY AM: Avatar: The Way of Water has beaten Universal/Illumination’s Minions: The Rise of Gru as the second best Monday of the year with $16.2M. Rise of Gru had $16M. The best Monday of 2022 belongs to Top Gun: Maverick‘s Memorial Day of $33.8M. Running total for the James Cameron sequel is $150.3M domestic, and a near half billion worldwide. Read our Christmas weekend preview here.
MONDAY PM: Disney/20th Century Studio’s Avatar: The Way of Water is heading to a Monday around $16M which will take its four day total to $150.1M. Nothing to cry about as the Monday for the James Cameron directed movie bests the first Monday of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ($11.1M).
If Avatar 2 exceeds $16M today, that will rank as the second best Monday of 2022, besting the Monday July 4th gross of Universal/Illumination’s Minions: The Rise of Gru.
The top grossing Monday of the year belongs to the Memorial Day take of Paramount’s Top Gun: Maverick which made $33.8M. A year ago, the first Monday of Sony/Marvel Studio’s Spider-Man: No Way Home grossed $37.1M, the third best Monday ever at the domestic box office.
The 3-day box office for Avatar: The Way of Water kept intact with what Disney called on Sunday AM, the sequel finaling at $134.1M. In regards to the sequel missing its $150M-$175M projections, many sources are calling tracking out on that one. This 3 hour 12 minute 3D opus should never have been comped to Marvel movies which are front-loaded; Avatar 2‘s box office fuel tied greatly to premium theater ticket sales (i.e. Imax, Dolby, 4DX, etc).
Currently, Avatar 2‘s Monday is emulating a similar Sunday-to-Monday decline to that of Disney’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story which went down -54% over that time span for a $17.6M Monday. Avatar 2‘s Sunday-to-Monday decline is looking like -56% after making $36.5M yesterday.
4-day work week experiment deemed a success, with higher productivity and lower stress levels
Could a five-day work-week soon become a thing of the past?
The results of a six-month experiment with the participation of dozens of companies are now in: A four-day work week may actually be better for business.
Workers reported lower levels of stress and fatigue and company revenue was often higher compared to the prior year.
The experiment involved 33 companies and more than 900 employees.
In fact, out of the 33 companies, 27 completed a survey after the experiment and none of those said they were planning to go back to the five-day work week.
A separate six-month trial is currently underway in the United Kingdom, with 70 companies and more than 3,000 workers participating. Results are due in February.
How a 4-day workweek could benefit the environment
Over the years, studies have documented a link between fewer working hours and lower emissions — reductions that experts explain may be the result of changes to commuting, energy use and lifestyle habits. One analysis of data looking at more than two dozen countries from 1970 to 2007 predicted that if work hours were reduced by 10 percent, there could be drops in ecological footprint, carbon footprint and carbon dioxide emissions by 12.1 percent, 14.6 percent and 4.2 percent, respectively.
“The one thing we do know from lots of years of data and various papers and so forth is that the countries with short hours of work tend to be the ones with low emissions, and work time reductions tend to be associated with emission reduction,” said Juliet Schor, an economist and sociologist at Boston College who researches work, consumption and climate change.
For instance, reducing working hours could affect people’s lives outside of work, said Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He suggested this kind of change could lead people toward more environmentally friendly habits. “They become used to a different lifestyle that’s a lower consumption lifestyle because they have more time.”
But those benefits would depend on a number of factors, experts emphasize, including how people choose to spend nonworking time. It’s also critical, they said, to remember that reducing working hours is just one strategy to combat climate change.
“There’s no one arguing that the four-day workweek is a silver bullet that will address all of our environmental concerns in one go — far from it,” O’Connor said. “But can it be a very powerful enabler and a very powerful contributor? I think absolutely it can.”
Transportation is the biggest contributor to greenhouse emissions, Schor said, “and commuting is a big part of that.”
In 2020, the transportation sector accounted for about 27 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The potential benefits of cutting down on commuting and travel were perhaps most noticeable during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic. When widespread stay-at-home orders were in place, the emissions from driving, flying and industrial output were dramatically reduced. Air quality in cities around the world showed marked improvement, while global emissions plummeted.
Largely fueled by the pandemic, a widespread adoption of remote and hybrid work models may mean many are already commuting less even if they work five days a week, O’Connor said — but officially adopting a four-day workweek could benefit industries that are still largely in-person.
A November 2021 survey of 2,000 employees and 500 business leaders in the United Kingdom found that if all organizations introduced a four-day week, the reduced trips to work would decrease travel overall by more than 691 million miles a week.
But the climate benefits of less commuting could be negated, experts said, if people choose to spend their extra time off traveling, particularly if they do so by car or plane.
Schor said it’s important for people to ask themselves: “What are they going to be doing on the fifth day, and what is the energy use associated with that, and how does it compare to what they would have been doing?”
Shorter working hours could lead to reductions in energy usage, experts said.
According to a 2006 paper, if the United States adopted European work standards, the country would consume about 20 percent less energy. And if Europeans gave up those shorter workweeks, the authors wrote they would “consume some additional 25 percent more energy.”
“There’s a definite relation between production, consumption and carbon emissions,” said Weisbrot, who co-wrote the 2006 paper.
Energy could also be conserved if less resources are needed to heat and cool large office buildings, Schor said, reducing demands on electricity.
When the Utah state government launched a four-day workweek trial among its employees in 2008, one report projected that shutting down buildings on Fridays would lead to a decrease of at least 6,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, Scientific American reported.
Any potential energy-saving gains, however, hinge on how companies and individuals use resources, Schor said.
For example, if an entire workplace shuts down on the fifth day, that would help lower consumption — less so if the office stays open to accommodate employees taking different days off. Energy consumption could also increase overall if people spend their day off at home or elsewhere doing activities that would use more resources than if they were at work.
It’s possible that fewer working hours may lead some people to have a larger carbon footprint, but experts say research suggests that most people are likely to shift toward more sustainable lifestyles.
“The majority view coalesces around the idea that intense working often leads to intense living,” O’Connor said. “By offering people additional time back, you’re enabling people to have more time to make sustainable life choices.”
One theory, Schor said, is that people who work more and have less free time tend to do things in more carbon-intensive ways, such as choosing faster modes of transportation or buying prepared foods. “Convenience is often carbon-intensive and people opt for convenience when they’re time-stressed.”
Meanwhile, some research suggests that those who work less may be more likely to engage in traditionally low-carbon activities, such as spending time with family or sleeping.
“When we talk about the four-day workweek and the environment, we focus on the tangible, but actually, in a way, the biggest potential benefit here is in the intangible,” O’Connor said. “It’s in the shift away from a focus on hard work to a focus on smart work. It’s the cultural change in how we work and the impact that could have on how we live, and I think that that’s the piece that’s really revolutionary.”
But moving to widely reduce working hours should not be done in isolation, he and other experts said.
“It doesn’t matter how many days you work if we’re still using fossil fuels,” Schor said.
California lawmaker explains why she’s pushing for a 4-day workweek
With millions of Americans changing jobs, one California politician wants to use the “Great Reset” to create a better work-life balance for workers.
Assembly member Cristina Garcia has cosponsored a bill to make the state’s official workweek 32 hours for companies with 500 or more employees. Any work done past that cutoff would come with a hefty raise: Employers would be required to pay time-and-a-half to workers whose hours run over 32 a week. And work stretching past 12 hours a day or into seven days a week would be paid at double the normal wage.
Employers subject to the law, which would apply to 20% of California’s workforce, also would be barred from reducing people’s pay if they work less than their standard workweek, Garcia told CBS News. The bill would not apply to workers who are represented by a union and covered by a collective bargaining agreement.
“After two years of being in the pandemic, we’ve had over 47 million employees leave their job looking for better opportunities,” Garcia said. “They’re sending a clear message they want a better work-life balance — they want better emotional and mental health, and this is part of that discussion.”
California’s economy is the fifth-largest in the world and the largest among U.S. states, making it a bellwether for many aspects of workplace culture.
Job killer?
The proposed law would cover about 2,600 companies in California, according to the Employment Development Department.
The California Chamber of Commerce called it a “job killer,” saying it would make hiring more expensive and lead to a drop in jobs in California.
“Labor costs are often one of the highest costs a business faces,” Ashley Hoffman, policy advocate with the Chamber, wrote to bill cosponsor Evan Low last week.
“[B]usinesses often operate on thin profit margins and… the number of employees you have does not dictate financial success,” she wrote.
Evidence from other countries suggests that a four-day workweek can have positive effects, boosting employee productivity while reducing stress. A broad trial in Iceland last summer concluded that a shorter workweek was an “overwhelming success” — 8 in 10 employees in the country have since shifted to working four days a week. Other countries including Scotland, Spain and even famously workaholic Japan have tested shorter work weeks.
Garcia contends that large companies, which have had their most profitable quarter since the 1950s, can afford to pay workers more.
“We want to see them share some of that better life with their employees as well,” she told CBS News.
Working more than peasants
In the U.S., a handful of companies have started experimenting with a four-day week. Kickstarter is officially launching its shortened workweek this month. “[M]y expectation and my desire is that we can achieve the same outcomes or greater outcomes as a result of changing the way that we work,” departing CEO Aziz Hasan told Time of the change.
D’Youville College, a small private school in Buffalo, New York, started testing a four-day week in January. President Lorrie Clemo said the move would “improve the overall wellbeing of our employees and competitiveness of our institution.”
But overall, the shortened workweek has been a relative rarity in a nation where workers toil longer hours than in most other industrialized countries.
The typical American worker today works nearly 1,770 hours a year. Among developed economies, only four nations — Israel, Korea, Russia and Mexico — consistently put in longer hours than America. Historical records suggest that 14th century peasants worked far less than contemporary Americans; by contrast, factory workers in the 19th century put in significantly longer hours.
Garcia’s bill is similar to a federal bill introduced in Congress by Mark Takano, a California Democrat, and endorsed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
“People are spending more time at work, less time with loved ones, their health and well-being is worsening, and their pay has remained stagnant. It’s time for change,” Takano said in a statement.
Stock futures fall after S&P 500 posts 4-day losing streak
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on January 07, 2022 in New York City.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
Stock futures were lower in overnight trading Sunday after a rocky start to 2022 for equity markets as interest rates rise.
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed about 85 points, or 0.2%. S&P 500 futures dipped 0.2% and Nasdaq 100 futures lost 0.1%.
The three major stock averages all fell in the first week of the year. The S&P 500 slid 0.4% on Friday for its first four-day losing streak since September. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.9%, also posting four straight losing days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 4.81 points.
Stocks, particularly high-growth names, have struggled as interest rates tick higher. The 10-year Treasury yield topped 1.8% on Friday, on a run after closing 2021 at the 1.51% level.
“As we kick-started 2022 this week, trading attention fell on a definitive rotation into value and pro-cyclical stocks and out of growth as investors digested a sharply higher rate environment,” Goldman Sachs’ Chris Hussey said in a Friday note.
The rising rates come as the Federal Reserve signaled it could dial back its easy monetary policy more aggressively than some expected. Minutes from the Fed’s December meeting released Wednesday showed the central bank is planning to shrink its balance sheet in addition to hiking rates.
Investors are awaiting key inflation reports in the week ahead. The consumer price index is set for release Wednesday and the producer price index is slated for Thursday.
Federal Chair Jerome Powell is scheduled to testify Tuesday at his nomination hearing before a Senate panel, while the hearing on Fed Governor Lael Brainard’s nomination to the post of vice chair is set for Thursday.
Delta Air Lines reports earnings Thursday and financial heavyweights JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo release quarterly results Friday.
A 4-day workweek could help remedy employee burnout, workers say
Halfpoint Images | Moment | Getty Images
More than a year and a half into the Covid-19 pandemic, many American workers are burned out.
The remedy may be a four-day workweek, according to a survey from Eagle Hill Consulting.
Of those U.S. employees polled, 53% said they are experiencing burnout, with women and younger workers showing the highest levels, at 56% and 62% respectively. Fully 83% said a shortened workweek would help. The survey included 1,010 respondents from a random sample of employees across the U.S.
“Employee burnout has been simmering for years — and the twin problems of the pandemic and workforce shortage have exacerbated the problem,” said Melissa Jezior, president and CEO of Eagle Hill Consulting.
While not new, the idea of a four-day workweek has slowly been gaining ground since the Covid-19 pandemic struck. In July, Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., introduced a bill that reduces the standard workweek to 32 hours, from 40.
More from Invest in You:
The ‘Great Resignation’ is burning out those who stay
Use these resume strategies to stand out to recruiters
Switching jobs can boost income. When to put yourself on the market
Employers, meanwhile, are looking for ways to become more efficient while at the same time addressing the needs of employees. In September, technology company Bolt jumped started a four-day workweek and earlier this year New York-based crowdfunding platform Kickstarter announced it would test it out in early 2022.
The latter is taking part in a global effort, called 4 Day Week Global, that has companies trying the reduced workweek. So far, 15 businesses in the U.S. and Canada have joined the six-month pilot program, which kicks off next year.
The idea is to reduce work hours, not pay or productivity.
“We are changing the model of work away from measuring how long you are at your desk, how long you are at the office, and moving that towards what are people actually producing and what outcomes are we trying to achieve over the course of the week,” said Joe O’Connor, global pilot program manager at 4 Day Week Global.
Amid the “Great Resignation,” in which a record 4.4 million people quit in September alone, a four-day workweek may give employers an edge when it comes to hiring, advocates suggest.
According to a 2019 report by Henley Business School in the U.K, 63% of businesses said it is easier to attract and retain talent with a four-day week. It also found that 78% of employees with four-day schedules are happier and less stressed.
“Companies that have done this well are not saying, ‘These are the changes you need to make,'” O’Connor said.
“They have empowered their people to come up with ideas and solutions to change the way we work to ensure we produce the same outcomes over four days rather than five.”
A five-day work week has been a part of the American culture for more than a century, and change isn’t easy.
Melissa Jezio
President and CEO of Eagle Hill Consulting
That’s what Banks Benitez, co-founder and CEO Denver-based Uncharted, did when he decided to test out the four-day week. Meetings were canceled or downsized and priorities were reimagined.
“It has been a great forcing function for us to think differently, like taking a smaller suitcase on vacation,” he said. “We have to make trade-offs.”
Evaluating a four-day work week should be part of the larger strategic conversation about the intersection of an organization’s mission and its people, Eagle Hill Consulting’s Jezior said.
It may work well for some, but not others, such as those in the hospitality, medical and public safety fields, she noted.
“A five-day work week has been a part of the American culture for more than a century, and change isn’t easy,” Jezio said.
SIGN UP: Money 101 is an 8-week learning course to financial freedom, delivered weekly to your inbox.
CHECK OUT: Meet the ‘semi-rich’: Millions of high-income Americans may not feel wealthy but are, says ‘The 9.9 percent’ author via Grow with Acorns+CNBC
Disclosure: NBCUniversal and Comcast Ventures are investors in Acorns.
Maine reports 893 COVID-19 cases, 7 additional deaths over a 4-day period
Maine is reporting 893 new cases of COVID-19 over a four-day period, and seven additional deaths.
The cases are from Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday as the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention does not report case counts over the weekend, and the Indigenous People’s Day holiday further delayed reporting of cases.
If there’s not a substantial backlog of cases to work through this week, the four-day case count represents a decline in average daily cases. The seven-day average of daily new cases stood at 382.9 on Wednesday, compared to 589.3 a week ago and 444.1 a month ago.
In recent weeks, Maine CDC workers haven’t been able to process all of the test results coming in – to weed out duplicate positive test results – causing a backlog that resulted in thousands of tests being processed several days or more than a week after they were initially reported to the state. But last week there was not a significant backlog and the daily reports were more reflective of current trends.
Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine CDC, will brief the media at 2 p.m. today.
Maine’s infection rate is close to the national average, with Maine reporting 27.4 cases per 100,000 people – on a seven-day average – compared to the national average of 28, according to the Harvard Global Health Institute.
Since the pandemic began in March, 2020, Maine has reported 95,833 cases of COVID-19, and 1,083 deaths.
On the vaccination front, 888,802 people have received their final dose, representing 66.1 percent of the state’s 1.3 million population.
Meanwhile, officials with Central Maine Healthcare in Lewiston on Tuesday asked the Mills administration for a testing option in the mandate that health care workers must be vaccinated against COVID-19. Steve Littleson, president and CEO of Central Maine Healthcare, said that with more than 200 staff leaving their jobs rather than get vaccinated, it will result in Central Maine Medical Center cutting services, including neonatal intensive care, pediatric hospital admissions and trauma care.
But Gov. Janet Mills rejected the idea, and none of the other major health care systems in the state – MaineHealth, Northern Light Health and MaineGeneral Medical Center – are requesting a testing option.
“Health care workers must take every precaution to protect themselves and those they serve,” Mills said. “Regular testing is not nearly as effective at protecting peoples’ health as vaccination, which is why it is not a part of our policy and it is not a part of the forthcoming federal policy requiring all health care workers to be vaccinated.”
The hospitals are reporting that so far about 90 percent or more of their workers are vaccinated leading up to Friday, which is the last day that health care employees can get their shots and comply with an Oct. 29 deadline to be fully vaccinated. People who get the Johnson & Johnson shot on Friday will be fully immunized two weeks after the shot is given.
This story will be updated.
« Previous
Portland police say little about shooting by officer, but a witness emerges
Next »
Related Stories
Meghan’s £22,000 power dressing: Duchess’s 4-day New York trip had ‘more changes than Broadway play’
It was a four-day ‘power trip’ to tell the world that Meghan and Harry were back in business. Just three months after the birth of daughter Lilibet, the Sussexes left their baby and two-year-old son Archie at home in their £11.5 million Montecito mansion on Wednesday and swept into Manhattan.
Ex-Suits actress Meghan, 40, ditched her laid-back Californian vibe for what one onlooker called ‘a wardrobe fit for Succession’ – referring to the hit show about a family locked in a bitter power struggle.
With sweeping convoys and police outriders bringing New York traffic to a halt, photo ops with the great and the good and just the right amount of posing with underprivileged children, the visit was topped off triumphantly last night.
It seems that, in America at least, the Duke and Duchess have no intention of fading away – let alone embracing the ‘privacy’ they once so desperately claimed to crave. Pictured, Loro Piana cashmere coat £3850, matching trousers £1300, Manolo Blahnick shoes £425, total £5575
The pair took to the stage in Central Park for Global Citizen Live, a concert aimed at raising awareness for a variety of issues, including global poverty and climate change. It has been dubbed ‘Wokestock’.
It seems that, in America at least, the Duke and Duchess have no intention of fading away – let alone embracing the ‘privacy’ they once so desperately claimed to crave.
MORE CHANGES THAN A BROADWAY PLAY
Former actress Meghan showed she intended to be taken seriously in a series of expensive power suits with towering heels which she is said to have ‘updated each day to ensure we didn’t get the same shot twice’.
She is believed to have travelled with her own hair and make-up team and carefully picked out her wardrobe with a stylist weeks in advance for ‘maximum impact’.
While some questioned why the duchess chose to wear heavy wool coats during an unseasonably warm week in New York where temperatures were a balmy 79F, Meghan was clearly all about the ‘optics’.
Emporio Armani coat £1000, Matching black trousers £650, Aquazzura shoes £450, Total £2100
‘She was here for business, whatever that business may be, and she dressed the part,’ one witness said.
Many times over. According to one New York photographer, the Sussexes had ‘more wardrobe changes than a Broadway play’.
For the solemnity of her World Trade Center Memorial visit, Meghan wore a black polo, heavy black wool £1,000 Emporio Armani coat with matching £650 black trousers and £450 Aquazzura heels.
She changed into a £3,200 Max Mara camel coat for her visit to the UN on Thursday (carrying a £2,500 Valextra ‘Iside’ bag) and then into a little black dress to meet Chelsea Clinton and others at the World Health Organisation.
For Friday’s visit to underprivileged children at Harlem’s PS 123 Mahalia Jackson Shool, she wore a £5,575 outfit, comprising a £3,850 Loro Piana loose-fitting pyjama-style burgundy cashmere coat with matching £1,300 trousers and £425 Manolo Blahnik red stilettos.
Public records show that 94 per cent of the children at the school qualify for free meals.
For her second visit to the UN yesterday, she was back to an all-beige power suit costing £4,554, including a £4,084 Max Mara ‘Lilia cashmere coat and £470 Max Mara high-waisted camel wool trousers.
Harry, 37, meanwhile, sat crossed-legged on the floor as Meghan read her picture book The Bench (aimed at toddlers) to a group of seven-year-olds, many of whom were so overwhelmed by the visit that they touchingly broke down in tears as they hugged the pair goodbye.
no booze, just designer water
The couple made not one, but two trips to the headquarters of the United Nations.
On Thursday, they met the American ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who said they had had ‘important discussions’ about racial justice, Covid-19 and mental health awareness.
Yesterday morning, they swept in again in their cavalcade of gas- guzzling Range Rovers and Chevrolets to meet UN Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed.
‘Boris Johnson got only one visit to the UN this week,’ said a witness. ‘They are clearly going for the whole “We’re so important we get multiple visits” thing.’
Last night’s Global Citizen Live concert, at which stars including Coldplay, Jennifer Lopez and Billy Eilish were due to appear, boasted a ‘woke’, mostly vegetarian menu. There was no booze on sale, just designer water.
Max Mara camel coat £3200, Roland Mouret pencil skirt £410, Valextra ‘Iside’ bag £2,500, total £6110
HOW MEGHAN STOPPED THE TRAFFIC
Hard-to-impress New Yorkers have been wowed by the couple’s ‘presidential-style’ convoys and wall-of-steel security. Streets have been sealed off, police stopped the traffic and the World Trade Center, a national monument, was completely closed down for their visit.
One onlooker counted ten cars as their convoy swept up.
The security cordon around the pair, which comprises some 20 officials at any time, seemed to include their own private bodyguards, New York Police Department officers, agents from the Department of Homeland Security (usually only reserved for visiting heads of state) and private security staff.
‘They are travelling presidential style,’ said one witness.
‘They don’t have The Beast (the President’s bomb-proof limousine) but they have two Range Rovers with blacked-out windows. They always go in the first one with security and driver and then their flunkeys follow in a procession of large sports utility vehicles.
‘The convoy is like a state visit by a major head of state.
‘The NYPD outriders have been shutting down streets to allow them to pass. They have been going through red lights.’
BODYGUARD FIT FOR TAYLOR SWIFT
One bodyguard for the Sussexes’ trip, an ex-New York cop called Jimmy, was recently identified by Rolling Stone magazine as having provided ‘Defcon-3 level’ security for the singer. The magazine claims that Jimmy lives in a £3.2 million flat across the hallway from Swift’s £14.5 million penthouse and is in charge of her security detail.
Meghan and Harry had at least two personal bodyguards with them at all times.
The pair were described as ‘short-haired and tough’ and witnesses said they ‘looked ex-military and one spoke with a British accent’.
They travelled everywhere with the couple and even sat at a table beside them in their hotel bar and as they enjoyed lunch at a soul food restaurant, jumping up every time anyone approached trying to take a photograph.
There were also two or three guards with earpieces and Department of Homeland Security badges on their lapels.
Max Mara ‘Lilia’ cashmere coat £4084, Max Mara high waisted camel wool wide trousers £470, total £4554
FAWNING DIGNITARIES
One prominent Democratic fundraiser said the couple’s schedule ‘ticked all the boxes’ for a ‘power trip’ to the City That Never Sleeps.
Fawning dignitaries included Mayor Bill de Blasio, his wife Chirlane McCray, son Dante and New York governor Kathy Hochul, who met the pair on their early- morning trip to the 9/11 memorial on Thursday.
Then it was on to the United Nations and the World Health Organisation followed by a solo meeting for Harry.
Back at the hotel bar he was spotted ‘with some suits who looked like they were celebrating the end of a long day at some middle-market management conference,’ as one onlooker put it. After Friday morning’s photo opportunity at the Harlem school, they went on to Melba’s soul food restaurant for a traditional Southern meal of fried chicken, waffles, catfish with chipotle mayonnaise, black-eyed peas and collard greens.
Harry was overheard telling owner Melba Wilson how much he loves collard greens because they are a speciality of his mother-in-law, Doria Ragland.
When a fellow diner offered to pay for their meal – which is estimated to have cost around £48 – the offer was politely declined.
While at the restaurant, the couple made a ‘commitment’ to donate $25,000 to its employee relief fund to help workers suffering as a result of the pandemic.
MEET MEGHAN’S ‘MINI ME’
Meghan’s ever-present companion was Toya Holness, the head of public relations for Archewell, the Sussexes’ charitable foundation.
A former football player, Holness has morphed into what one witness called a ‘Mini Me’.
‘She’s like Meghan’s shadow. She wears the same style of power suits, rarely takes off her Hollywood sunglasses and is always clutching bulging Archewell folders packed with briefing notes,’ said a source.
‘Even her hair is styled the same as Meghan’s.’
Other public relations aides have included representatives from Rubenstein, one of New York’s top PR outfits.
READY FOR OUR CLOSE-UP
Meghan and Harry’s personal photographer, Los Angeles-based Matt Sayles, was given special access inside each venue, taking carefully posed pictures with the couple and an endless succession of dignitaries.
A masked, suited man holding a video camera was also spotted as part of their entourage, prompting speculation that the couple were filming their jaunt to include in a ‘special’ for the streaming giant Netflix, with which they have a £100 million deal.
‘Home’ during their four-day trip was Manhattan’s Upper East Side Carlyle Hotel, Princess Diana’s favourite
THE PINKY RING GOES MISSING (AGAIN)
There has been much speculation about a £45,000 diamond pinky ring which Meghan has often worn, including on the recent Time magazine cover lauding the couple as global ‘influencers’.
While her publicity team initially denied the ring was made up of diamonds gifted by a mysterious Middle Eastern source, they later backtracked.
But they have refused to clarify where the stunning ‘pinky diamond’ – which comes with a matching set of equally-sunning earrings – came from.
Meghan was spotted wearing the ring on the first day of her trip – but since then it has not been seen.
However, she was still adorned with an estimated £220,000 worth of jewels, including a gold Cartier tank watch that belonged to Princess Diana, her gold Cartier ‘love’ bracelets and her engagement ring, wedding ring and diamond-encrusted eternity ring – all gifts from her adoring husband.
WHO’S THE DADDY?
Harry was spotted carrying a black leather monogrammed computer case engraved with ‘Archie’s Papa’ in gold.
MINE’S A £22 MARTINI
‘Home’ during their four-day trip was Manhattan’s Upper East Side Carlyle Hotel, Princess Diana’s favourite.
The Sussexes were believed to be occupying one of the main suites, which costs around £8,000 a night and enjoys sweeping views over Central Park.
On Wednesday night, Meghan and Harry were seen drinking £22-a-pop martinis with old friends, designer Mischa Nonoo and her husband Mikey Hess, heir to a vast oil fortune, in the hotel’s swanky Bemelmans Bar.
One woman who sat opposite their red-leather booth told how two security guards sat on the next table and rebuffed anyone who tried to take pictures.
She also said Meghan never stopped talking.
Harry, on the other hand, ‘had very few responses’.
‘Harry got bored and started looking at his phone,’ the hotel source claimed.
‘Then he got back into the conversation and then he lost it again and went back to his phone.’
Harry is said to have ordered a plate of hamburger sliders during the evening.
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you’ve submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.