Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were reportedly given no advance notice before King Charles III issued a letter Monday addressing their standing within the royal sphere.

A spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex told the BBC on Tuesday that the couple were “a little surprised to have not been told about this” ahead of the letter’s release.

According to the report, the Sussexes’ team received the correspondence shortly before 2 p.m. UK time. In it, Harry and Meghan were described as “private citizens with commercial and charitable interests.”

Harry was then contacted at 3:09 p.m. and informed that his representatives had replied to the King’s letter with follow-up questions. Just two minutes later, the letter was circulated more widely.

A representative for Harry and Markle did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.

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Charles’ letter confirmed the duo, who recently relocated to the United Kingdom after six years away, will not be working royals carrying out official engagements.

“It is well known that in January 2020 the Duke and Duchess stepped down from undertaking representative duties on behalf of the Sovereign, and are no longer working Members of the Royal Family,” the announcement, sent to the BBC on behalf of Charles by the family’s lord chamberlain, read.

“There is no change to the current status of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex,” it continued. Their styles as His and Her Royal Highness remain in abeyance and are not used.”

Charles, 77, issued the letter “to help avoid doubt or confusion.”

This is a developing story…

Israel’s capture on Sunday of the strategically important Ali al-Taher ridge in southern Lebanon, long viewed as a key Hezbollah and Iranian stronghold, marked a significant setback for Tehran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance.”

The Israel Defense Forces’ gain does not amount to a decisive defeat for Hezbollah, but it strips the Iranian-backed terrorist organization of one of its most important forward positions for planning a potential invasion of Israel.

IDF Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, founder and president of the Israel-based Alma Research and Education Center, told News Media that Israel has spent years steadily weakening Hezbollah’s military capabilities. “In the past three years Israel has attacked Hezbollah against various areas, for instance, we degraded the amount of rockets and missiles,” she said.

According to Zehavi, the IDF has destroyed or neutralized roughly 90% of Hezbollah’s rocket and missile stockpile. “Today Hezbollah is holding between 10,000 to 15,000 rockets, which is much less than what it used to have. Most of the array of sophisticated missiles, accurate missiles and long-range missiles was either eliminated or neutralized,” she said.

She said, “The capability to launch an invasion of thousands of terrorists into Israel which was the plan, and this was the preparedness three years ago. This capability doesn’t exist anymore since the IDF is based in South Lebanon along the borderline, preventing Hezbollah from coming back to those places.”

In late August, Alma released a widely read analysis on: “Hezbollah – Situation Assessment: From a Large-Scale Terrorist Army to a Persistent Dispersed Threat.”

Zehavi, who resides in northern Israel and has experienced Hezbollah’s massive aerial attacks into her region since the Lebanese terrorist movement joined Hamas in its war against Israel, warned that, “As long as Iran supports its main proxy, which is Hezbollah, it will be very difficult to prevent its rebuilding of its military capabilities and with everything that happened in Iran In the past year, Iran still supports Hezbollah.”

She noted that Iran still aids Hezbollah via “arms smuggling and money” and “they still put a lot of effort [into] that and the training and the involvement of Iran in Hezbollah in Lebanon. And this must be stopped.”

Iran’s regime is a state-sponsor of terrorism and Hezbollah’s base is the Shiite community in Lebanon. Radical Shiite Islamism unifies Iran’s regime with its chief proxy, Hezbollah, in Lebanon.

Alma, who has a deep knowledge of Hezbollah’s activities, wrote on X on Sunday: “The battle for the Ali al-Taher Ridge is over – the struggle with Hezbollah is not.”

According to Zehavi, Hezbollah “today is much more of a guerrilla organization than a terrorist army as it used to be. It is having a lot of difficulties in rebuilding its capabilities… It is dedicated to rebuilding its military capabilities. But it has a lot of challenges along the way with this regard because of the regime change in Syria, because of that fact that it’s much more difficult to transfer weapons through the airport in Lebanon and through Syria. But it doesn’t mean that it is not happening. They are still trying and some of it do pass.”

Hezbollah’s setback was also echoed by Israel TV’s Channel 12 chief political analyst, Amit Segal. He said the Hezbollah base Ali al-Taher was “Just 10 kilometers (just over six miles) from the Israeli border, with a clear view of the Litani and the Israeli Hula Valley, it was the place from which Hezbollah intended to coordinate its own Oct. 7 in the Galilee.”

Hezbollah’s ally, the Hamas terrorist organization, invaded Israel nearly three years ago on Oct. 7 and slaughtered over 1,200 people in southern Israel, including more than 40 Americans.

The IDF announced on Sunday that “Soldiers from the 36th Division have operated in recent weeks to clear and neutralize the two underground routes in the Ali al-Taher Ridge area in the Security Zone. The soldiers achieved operational control of the ridge area, both above and below ground, and cleared the area of terrorists. Some of the terrorists were eliminated, while others fled the area.”

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The IDF statement added that “Following operations in the underground routes over the past several weeks, their capability to carry out terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers from within the routes has been neutralized.”

Hezbollah official Mahmoud Qamati told a Lebanese podcaster in late August that, “Ali al-Taher is important, but if it is lost it does not mean the end of Hezbollah.”

Lebanon’s Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Mitri told an Arab TV station, also in late August, that the Lebanese army was ready to take over the strategic ridge.

He accused Israel of blocking the army due to its own political considerations ahead of Israeli national elections on Oct. 27.

“The problem is not in the Lebanese army’s readiness but in Israel’s stance,” he said.

The Trump administration had pushed for Hezbollah to allow Lebanon’s Army to take control of Ali al-Taher. Hezbollah refused the proposed U.S. deal.

A State Department spokesperson told News Media that “Hizballah has been the primary obstacle to Lebanon’s economic recovery, the main blemish on its international reputation, and the biggest threat to the safety and stability of Lebanon. It bears sole responsibility for Israel’s presence on Lebanese soil. This is precisely why Hizballah must be disarmed and dismantled.”

The State Department spokesperson added that “Hizballah is drastically weaker than at any point in recent history, which has allowed the Government of Lebanon to outlaw its military activities. We fully support that decision, as do all of our regional partners.”

Hanin Ghaddar, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute who focuses on Shia politics throughout the Levant, told News Media that “Hezbollah is weakened on two levels. They lost a lot of people, commanders and people, and weapons. Today, there is a goal to rebuild this military structure, invest in rebuilding in personnel, infrastructure and weapons. This is their primary goal.”

Ghaddar, who is from Lebanon, added the second level of weakness for Hezbollah is the people are divided within the Shiite community. Hezbollah is no longer the father figure. Hezbollah ended with [Hassan] Nasrallah with his assassination. Hezbollah as protector and liberator is no longer there. It is a mix of IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], Hezbollah and Nabih Berri [ the Shiite speaker of the Lebanese parliament and the president of the Amal movement].”

Ghaddar said the Shiite community in Lebanon is fractured over whether to continue its support for Hezbollah after multiple wars with Israel.  She said it’s “divided over whether Hezbollah is the solution. There is where Hezbollah is bleeding. Hezbollah needs the Shiite community for political power.”

Ghaddar said that “Hezbollah has managed to get appointments through their allies, Berri and Amal… They have ministries of finance and health ministry… They really wanted appointments in general security and military. They got that. This reflects their strength economically. They are in survival and using power in the state and cash economy to rebuild.”

Multiple News Media press queries sent to the Lebanese Embassy in Washington, D.C., went unanswered.

A woman who once described herself as an atheist says a six-minute brush with death changed everything she thought she knew about life, consciousness and humanity’s place in the universe.

Dr. Anna Stone, a former Department of Defense research technician, was 38 in 2016 when an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy ruptured, triggering catastrophic internal bleeding that she says left her clinically dead in a hospital.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, Stone said the near-death experience shattered her long-held belief that awareness simply disappears when the body dies, leaving her convinced that some form of afterlife is real.

But she said the most powerful revelation was not just personal survival beyond death. According to Stone, she returned with the conviction that all people — no matter their faith, politics or culture — are bound together within a single shared consciousness.

‘I came back with this understanding that God, or source, or whatever you want to call it, is like an ocean,’ she told the Daily Mail.

She described each human being as a separate droplet containing the divine, destined after death to rejoin the same ‘sea of consciousness’ without losing their individuality.

‘We’re all going to go to the same place at the end,’ Stone said, arguing that the divisions people use to separate themselves are ultimately ‘all fake.’

She also said the incident awoke a hidden psychic connection between her and another realm – which now sends her terrifying messages from an unseen guardian. 

Stone had previously worked as a lab technician specializing in histology, preparing tissue samples in research labs that she said were tied to university and government contracts. 

This included work connected to the US Department of Veterans Affairs, the University of California, Los Angeles and defense projects.

Before her near-death experience, Stone rejected the strict religious teachings of her upbringing and believed that there was no afterlife awaiting her when she died.

‘I am energy, I’m made of cells, cells decay and die. My energy will transfer back to the Earth in some way, shape, or form, as energy does. But it’s not going to be me continuing; it’s gonna be the energy of my body feeding plants or something. That made sense to me,’ she explained.

That all changed when Stone began suffering from multiple episodes of heavy bleeding. She went to the hospital three times, and doctors treated the condition as an ulcer.

In reality, Stone was dealing with an ectopic pregnancy, where the fetus grows inside the fallopian tube. After it ruptured, Stone’s heart stopped while doctors rushed to give her a massive blood transfusion.

Stone described feeling extreme pain as if every cell in her body was dying before she suddenly found herself standing next to her physical body in the hospital, watching as doctors called her time of death and referred to her as a ‘junkie.’

‘I didn’t care that he had said it, really. I cared more, like, did I hear it? Because that’s a problem,’ Stone said, adding that she asked the doctor about what he said when she came back to life.

‘If I’m clinically dead and you called my time a death, I should not have been able to see or hear any of this, right? And, he says, “I’m sorry, I did. You shouldn’t have been able to hear that.”‘

Despite only being clinically dead for six minutes, time did not seem to apply in this realm, and Stone noticed other versions of herself inhabiting the same realm with her.

‘I knew there was a two-year-old, six-year-old, 12-year-old and 16-year-old version of me, all around me. I was existing all at the same time.’

She said the various versions of her past also shared this space with other people whom she recognized but never knew their names. They were strangers she had encountered throughout her life, who had been affected by the negative interactions Stone had with them.

‘I got to see from their perspective how selfish I was,’ Stone confessed. ‘I didn’t consider the other people that I was interacting with. I was just going through my day, and just doing my thing, and I was not considering other people.’

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After this revelation, Stone saw a slightly different version of herself as she looked in 2016, hearing the presence say ‘nope,’ and understanding that it meant she would not be staying in the afterlife.

She claimed that returning to her body was an extremely painful experience, seeing her return to Earth through her navel and feeling her entire body get compressed through this tiny hole.

The trauma of the near-death experience did not end for Stone after finding out from the doctor that she could hear his private comments. In fact, the experience had lasting effects that led her to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.

Stone claimed she returned from the afterlife and repeatedly heard voices that gave her warnings moments before terrible events took place, including one which told her to stop just before she nearly struck a pedestrian with her car on a poorly lit street.

‘I started hearing this voice. Not a voice outside of me. It was inside, and it would tell me things, like, don’t drink that, or, don’t go that way,’ Stone said.

In another incident, Stone said she could hear a stranger standing near her while walking to her teaching job ask what time it was.

She answered that the time was 3.30pm, causing the man to panic and claim he never asked that question out loud.

After experiencing these incidents, doctors at the University of Southern California ruled out schizophrenia and similar conditions.

Although Stone was diagnosed with complex PTSD from her difficult childhood, including her father being arrested for murder when she was two, and being kicked out of her house at age 12, there was no explanation for what was causing the episodes.

She told the Daily Mail she now believes that her soul somehow caused the entire near-death experience to take place to put her life back on the right track.

Stone, who would go on to earn a PhD in spiritual psychology after the incident, said she battled an addiction to opioids before going through a medical detox in 2011.

She also admitted to drinking heavily before her near-death experience but has not drank since due to a miraculous incident right after she got home from the hospital.

‘I tried to drink alcohol, and it foamed up in my mouth. Instead of drinking it, it turned from liquid into this foam and it was warm,’ she said.

‘I had to spit it out, and I tried a different type of alcohol, same thing. That was the end of it. So I stopped.’

‘I knew I was coming back,’ Stone said of her near-death experience. ‘This was just, like, I call it my karmic b**** slap. It was like, Anna, get your s*** together, what are you doing?’

As for her own experience, Stone said it completely altered her as a person from the moment she left the hospital.

Shortly after, Stone received an offer to teach at a continuation school, working with students whose lives had also been marked by trauma, disruption and the same kinds of struggles she knew firsthand.

She has taught, written and studied how trauma, consciousness, and unusual sensitivity are connected since 2016, to help other people make sense of pain and change.

‘I would hope that it means that we are not finite, that we are part of this collective organism of the universe that is, I believe, conscious,’ Stone said of her near-death experience.

‘I have no idea where it’s gonna go, but I think that it is far more. My hope is that this whole existence here is more than just bills and taxes and disappointments and rat racing. I really hope that there’s something after that makes all of this worthwhile.’

New York City students head back to class this week — at least in theory. In practice, roughly one-third are expected to miss 10% or more of the school year.

That level of chronic absenteeism remains one of the clearest barriers to academic recovery and long-term student success.

The city Department of Education could offer a stronger curriculum, hire exceptional teachers and pour unlimited funding into classrooms, but none of it matters if children are not in their seats consistently enough to learn.

Against that backdrop, it is hardly surprising that about half of students are not on track to end the year reading at grade level.

Chronic absenteeism surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, and despite the return to normal school routines, the problem has remained alarmingly persistent.

In the 2018-19 academic year it stood at 26.5%, only to spike to 34.8% five years later.

The bad habits start young: 37.8% of kindergarteners were chronically absent in the 2024-25 school year.

A robust body of research correlates absenteeism, especially in early grades, with negative outcomes in school and later in life, including poorer standardized test scores and greater likelihood of drug use and criminal-justice involvement.

Unexcused absences, which make up the largest share of overall absenteeism, have the biggest impact on academic performance.

High rates of absenteeism can disrupt classroom instruction and make it harder for peers with consistent attendance to learn.

Asking taxpayers to spend record sums on public education, only to have a third of students miss large chunks of the school year, is the ultimate indictment of the poor value proposition city schools offer.

The DOE will spend more than $42,000 on each student, yet even those who attend will spend 130 fewer hours in classrooms than the national average.

This dysfunction is one reason why so many families are opting out of the system.

K-12 enrollment in New York City public schools has plummeted by over a tenth since 2020, or over 100,000 students.

Many families enroll in pre-K, only to flee before kindergarten: 52,400 children applied for pre-K seats in 2024–25, but only 46,370 later applied for kindergarten.

The School Construction Authority predicts the system will lose another 150,000 students over the next 10 years.

Charter schools, meanwhile, continue to grow, with five new schools opening this year.

The charters enroll an estimated 152,000 students, representing 16% of the entire pupil population.

What accounts for the difference?

For one thing, charter leaders are laser focused on attendance. 

They emphasize its importance with parents, track attendance carefully and contact families promptly when students miss class.

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Charters encourage punctuality directly, too: Students with perfect attendance receive special awards, and those who arrive at school consistently late incur penalties.

When charter students log too many absences, administrators have the flexibility to address it; they can require teachers to spend time addressing underlying issues with families.

That’s possible because charter teachers are not unionized, and not bound by strict timetables set in the DOE contract.

Nonetheless, reducing chronic absenteeism should be a top priority of Chancellor Kamar Samuels and district superintendents.

It will be impossible to raise achievement levels if students aren’t in school consistently.

This is not a new problem, but in years past elected officials made attendance a priority.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg launched a multi-year crusade in 2010 to reduce chronic absenteeism.

The effort included multimedia advertising, pairing troubled kids with “success mentors” and even automated phone calls from celebrities urging students to show up for school.

Out of the 100 schools that participated in Bloomberg’s programs, 58 saw reductions in chronic absenteeism.

The fact that school leaders and public officials have not treated the post-pandemic spike as an emergency underscores how DOE has declined — even as per-pupil spending has soared well beyond Bloomberg-era levels.

But there are some bright spots.

DOE is now mandating each school to designate a staff member who will be trained to act as an absenteeism “avoidance liaison.” 

It’s a good first step.

These staffers should offer a mix of supports to ensure that families bring students to school regularly — as well as consequences for those who exceed a certain number of unexcused absences.

Samuels must next target high-risk students with an early-warning system to flag unexcused absences and intervene quickly.

Absenteeism is a problem in urban districts nationwide: Detroit, for one, is experimenting with cash-incentive rewards for students who show up.

Reasonable minds can differ on this approach, but at least city leaders are taking the issue seriously enough to try unconventional solutions.

New York should likewise embrace innovation.

Finally, we need better data: New York, both city and state, drags its feet on releasing attendance data.

That leaves local researchers stuck with numbers from the 2024-25 school year — even as states like Connecticut and Rhode Island update public attendance dashboards monthly.

The first step toward fixing New York City’s schools is getting students back into them.

Danyela Souza Egorov and John Ketcham are fellows at Manhattan Institute.