Prince Harry struck a warm, business-as-usual tone at Thursday night’s Invictus Spirit Awards, reaffirming his commitment to military veterans and to the Invictus Games, which are scheduled to take place in Birmingham next summer.

The Irish Guards performed at the event at Greenwich’s Old Royal Naval College. The regiment is associated with Harry’s sister-in-law, Catherine, while the King serves as its commander-in-chief.

Their presence gave the occasion the appearance of carrying a measure of royal approval, despite its unofficial status.

Yet an unspoken question remains over where Harry and his family will be living when the Invictus Games begin in July next year.

Sources said a permanent return to Montecito, California, has not been ruled out amid continuing uncertainty surrounding the Sussexes’ future, and that such a move could come within weeks.

Those sources also said it is considered “likely” that the family could leave the UK again if Harry does not receive the enhanced taxpayer-funded security he has sought for years. More than 53,000 people had signed a petition opposing the provision of that security, with the total continuing to rise.

People close to the duke said a decision by the Royal and VIP Executive Committee, known as Ravec, on security arrangements for Harry, Meghan and their children, Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five, is expected “within days”. On Monday, it was confirmed that a security assessment was under way while Harry and Meghan are staying in the UK.

The couple have been asked to provide details of their “pattern of life”, including the children’s school run.

Harry’s belief, apparently, is that his case is unimpeachably strong in terms both of need and entitlement, and so he thinks he will get it.

I’m told: ‘It feels inevitable that Ravec will do something, that is what H [Harry] thinks.

‘He is a target not because of a lifestyle choice he made but because of who he was when he was born. He thinks that a decision will come imminently, this week or next week, and that it will be a Ravec U-turn.

‘The expectation is that the Home Office will try and play down and mute as much as they can to save face, but it is coming.’

However the duke’s friend adds: ‘If he doesn’t get [security] then I believe he will go back to Montecito for good, and that could be as soon as half-term.

‘The view is that if they don’t get security then it will have to mean that Ravec has been nobbled. The need is so clear, what else could be the explanation?

‘So if he doesn’t get it then he will take that as a sign that there are deeper elements at play. In that case then he will be safer in the US than in the UK, so he will return.’

As always, the highest drama and most intense emotional pitch seems to attend Prince Harry and his former actress wife Meghan, who were married on a glorious spring day in 2018 and left the UK rather less gloriously two years later.

After their adventures in California – a goldrush which included bonanzas from Netflix and Spotify and the publishers of Harry’s memoir Spare – the money fell away. Their deals downgraded and their Archewell charity essentially closed, they arrived in the UK on a private jet on August 27, with friends explaining that this move was all about sending their children to British schools.

American associates, meanwhile, muttered that the couple were ‘broke’.

I was told that they intend to stay in Britain until Archie and Lilibet have completed their schooling, so 13 years give or take. A serious commitment, then.

Harry certainly voiced his delight at being back in the UK this week, telling reporters at the Invictus Spirit Awards: ‘It’s wonderful to be back on British soil and really nice to see so many old faces and friends.

‘It’s been eventful, but we’re getting stuck into the work. The kids are in school. We’re happy.’

For now they are staying in a house on the estate of a wealthy friend in the Cotswolds. They think it is ‘ideal’ and apparently love it there.

Harry has said that they will be staying in the house (rent-free) until at least Christmas and despite molten torrents of estate-agent gossip, he and Meghan haven’t started house-hunting yet, which lends credence to the idea that the move isn’t absolutely inked in at this point.

The plan for their new life in the Cotswolds was apparently hastily made following an encouraging visit to Europe in July which included tea with the King and a number of days in Portugal where they have bought a holiday home.

Their British adventure has not got off to a great start, to put it mildly.

This week’s drama was the announcement on Tuesday that Archie and Lilibet had been removed from the prep school which they were enrolled in after only two days’ attendance the previous week, and were instead going to another school in a different part of the Cotswolds.

They’ve just completed their first full week there now.

The explanation for the flit from school given by Team Sussex to sympathetic media was couched in terms of advice from their security detail, and concerns over the ‘operational safety’ of a school run undertaken in the teeth of notoriously bad local traffic.

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It transpired that their privately paid protection officers had done a dummy run in July, when schools were out and everyone was away on holiday, and had thus come back with a false view of the state of play.

Naturally, in the context of Prince Harry’s lengthy battle to get taxpayer-funded protection, commentators have been lining up to accuse him and Meghan of using his children as ‘exhibits in his safety battle’. It’s said that some parents at both the school his children were at and the one they are now attending suspect the very same thing – that the issues with traffic and security have neatly made Harry’s argument for him. Bluntly, it’s helped him make his point.

The context of the dropping out of school also matters – because it happened just as Meghan released a video on Instagram of the family’s initial days in the UK, on Sunday. Geographical features included in the video made it easy for online sleuths to confirm where they are staying.

The Daily Mail is choosing not to name any of the areas or the schools where the Sussexes are, but online the information is now circulating freely, surely adding to the security risk. And she did this on the eve of the children starting at a new school.

A friend of Harry’s reveals the full details of the ‘untenable’ school run which the Sussexes essayed twice. I hear the journey, of 30-plus miles, took two hours there and back.

The Sussexes apparently can’t believe that they weren’t even able to so much as use a bus lane to cut through the snarl-ups.

As the friend said: ‘At the moment the fact is that they continue to be seen as private citizens to the point where they can’t even drive in a bus lane.’ What’s worse – and surely embarrassing for Meghan, who likes to boast that she has a ‘freakish attention to detail’ – is that they had failed to realise when planning the daily routine that Archie finishes at 4.15pm and Lili – in pre-prep – needs to be collected at 3pm.

It’s an oversight almost as large as Meghan holding her jam tongs upside down.

A friend says: ‘They did the initial trip on a weekday lunchtime during their July visit and it felt like a long school run but a doable one.

‘But when they did it at the start of term they had rather a shock. They realised that it was going to be four hours a day minimum in the car every day. They quickly said no, that’s not sustainable.

‘What really made it untenable was that Lili and Archie had different timetables at the school. So on top of it taking hours, there was also over an hour between pick ups.’

The family had left the house at 6.45am, and the return from school journey began shortly after lunchtime.

The friend says: ‘They are quite unfazed about it to be honest. They tried it, it didn’t work, but it’s early days of schooling for the kids and early in the term and they’ve now found another school. This is a long-term plan for them, they are in it for the long haul.’

The friend adds: ‘The issue was more about traffic logistics than security, and they were stuck between the two schools anyway.

‘They went for the bigger one initially as they felt it might have more facilities and more opportunities but they were always weighing up between the two choices.

‘The one which they chose initially was further away and that looks like an error.

‘They have been taken unawares by the difficulties. They never planned to move the kids after such a short time. In the end they judged it all poorly.

‘Harry takes full responsibility for coming back to the UK without security. You know that he wants security and he feels that he needs it but this is not a sub-plot about security.

‘They came into this with their eyes wide open. It was not going to be easy – ever – as a transition. But they believe that they are doing the right thing for the children.’

Royal biographer Robert Jobson also takes the view that the security concerns and traffic issues have bolstered Harry’s continuing battle for security.

He said: ‘Harry failed at the High Court, now he is trying to strong-arm Ravec and the Home Office into giving him what he wants.

‘I suggest they buy themselves an alarm clock, set it three-quarters of an hour early and join the real world.

‘Nobody asked him to come with his family to a country he deemed unsafe. Round-the-clock security for the non-working royals will cost a small fortune.’

Dai Davies, an ex-head of royal protection, was also critical. He said: ‘The preparation for coming to this country would appear to be lax.

‘The risk historically to children, even of the monarch, has been low. Do they really have to go in a convoy to school? The whole situation beggars belief. Just because Harry’s got the arrogance to waltz back in because they couldn’t make it where they were.’

As things stand, I am told that the family will ‘definitely’ go back to their idyllic Tuscan-style, 16-bedroom home in Montecito at half-term and at Christmas.

The children will no doubt be thrilled to be back under blue skies – October temperatures are around 25 degrees – and they will be reunited with their chickens and swimming pool.

The neighbours may have sighed ‘good riddance’ – but were they just a little premature?

Three generations of a Navajo family were returning home after buying supplies for an 8th birthday celebration when their truck became stuck in mud as powerful storms brought heavy rain to the area.

Kalisi Begay decided to walk home, while her mother and her 7-year-old daughter remained with the vehicle. Floodwaters began rising rapidly.

The grandmother and granddaughter, along with a friend they had called for assistance, were later swept away by floodwaters as they tried to cross a wash.

Elsie Begay, her granddaughter Lucy Allison Mike, and Begay’s best friend, Dora Franklin, were killed in Tuesday’s flood near Newcomb, New Mexico, a community of roughly 400 residents, family members said Friday.

“I think she was just wanting to get home,” said Stella Wilson, Begay’s niece.

Flash flooding across the Navajo Nation this week has damaged roads, prompted evacuations and claimed the three lives as a late-season influx of monsoon moisture delivered intense rainfall across the Four Corners region.

Navajo police said Friday evening that three families in Shiprock, New Mexico, were evacuated because of rising water and flooding near the San Juan River.

Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren declared a state of emergency Friday as standing water and damaged roads left some communities cut off and rain continued to fall. Multiple roads across the Navajo Nation remained closed Friday.

“Please use alternate routes, check on our elders and relatives, and follow the guidance of our emergency personnel,” Nygren said in a statement.

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About 40 miles south of Newcomb, in the small community of Mexican Springs, flooding rendered many dirt and gravel roads impassable, stranding some families and preventing others from getting home.

“A lot of ditches are washed out, the culvert pipes are gone. There’s big old, massive holes in the road,” said Darnell Etsitty, a maintenance worker with the local government who spent Friday building alternate routes to help people get in and out.

Etsitty said the Mexican Springs Chapter House had been converted into a temporary shelter and volunteers are using ATVs to deliver food, water and supplies to stranded households.

Wilson said the road conditions continue to be bad, and her family still can’t get to Wilson’s mother. She urged others to be patient and wait for help.

“I just want to make sure other families make it home,” she said.

Elsie Begay worked as a business technician at Sanostee Day School, where Mike attended as a third grader. Franklin was a bus driver for another nearby school.

Begay and Franklin loved working with kids, Wilson said. Begay would decorate the school’s front office for every holiday and make everyone feel welcome, and Franklin would give candy to kids as they got on the bus, she said. Begay also participated in fundraisers and helped with community events.

Mike was recently crowned “Miss Sanostee Day School” on Sept. 4 and was looking forward to her 8th birthday party next Tuesday. Wilson described her niece as “beautiful” and “bright.”

“She was a big blessing to her family,” Wilson said.

CNN Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins did not appear on her primetime program Friday evening, only hours after President Donald Trump barred both her and CNN from the White House.

By Friday night, Collins had not issued a public response to the White House ban. Her most recent social media post instead focused on reporting the president’s own Oval Office remarks about the decision.

Her absence from CNN’s 9 p.m. EST program, The Source, was notable after she hosted the broadcast as usual on Thursday night.

Collins has frequently drawn Trump’s criticism over the years. The president has previously dismissed her questions as “dumb” and told the journalist that she should “smile more.”

As the dispute escalated, CNN retained prominent First Amendment lawyer Ted Boutros.

“CNN stands fully behind our White House team and their fair and accurate reporting without hindrance or interference from the government,” the network said in a statement.

“Should the ban which President Trump threatened go ahead, it would be an illegal assault on that fundamental and constitutionally-protected right.”

While Collins has remained silent publicly, several CNN colleagues have spoken out, including Jake Tapper, who opened his program with a sharp condemnation of Trump’s order.

‘President Trump’s definition of what is “fake” has been pretty clearly established as any stories he does not like,’ the longtime news anchor began. 

Tapper then went on to note that Trump praised Breitbart and Fox News as the two media organizations he finds fair, as he argued that the two outlets repeatedly publish articles favorable to the president.

‘One suspects that the real issue is now CNN or how CNN covers the news. One suspects the issue is the facts he does not like – facts, stubborn things that are leading to rough forecasts for the president’s party in November,’ Tapper argued.

‘Facts, such as record-high diesel prices, facts such as voters’ expressing concerns with their ability to afford to live in the United States, facts such as the president’s abysmal approval/disapproval ratings, facts such as Republicans on the campaign trail starting to publicly break with him.’

He also noted that the president suggested his ban of media outlets may expand, after Trump attacked The New York Times and the Washington Post as ‘fake’ and ‘disgusting.’

‘If there is any strategy to this – and it’s not clear that there is – it is that the president would rather today’s focus be about this unconstitutional tantrum than about any of the facts that we cover everyday…’ Tapper continued.

‘That is not going to happen no matter how hard he tries,’ the journalist vowed. ‘He cannot ban what I’m saying to you right now.’

Tapper then pointed out that when War Secretary Pete Hegseth ousted certain outlets from the Pentagon ‘the coverage did not change, because the facts are what they are – a stalemate in Iran, at least 18 servicemembers killed in the Iran action, if not more, depleted munitions, unanswered questions about Iranian citizens, most regrettably children, killed.

‘The Pentagon ban did not work. This one will not either,’ he declared as he vowed to keep covering the news. 

Tapper also responded to the president’s claim that the ban could be lifted if CNN, MS Now and Politico ‘straighten’ themselves out.

‘If that means covering the president with adulation, that’s not our job,’ he argued.

‘And “straighten” when you think about it is not really the term he wants. He doesn’t want to “straighten,” he wants the news to bend, he wants the news to warp around his views, his desires, what he wants covered.’

In his Oval Office address, Trump admitted there was no particular reason for the timing of the ban – just a ‘cumulation of stories over the past few years’ that he got ‘sick of.’ 

‘Maybe they can get better, and we’d like to have them in,’ Trump remarked. ‘Somebody has got to keep them away.’ 

‘Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America. Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow,’ he had earlier warned on Truth Social.

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When a reporter then asked who those other outlets could be, Trump pointed to The Times and the Washington Post. 

‘They’re crummy papers. Both doing poorly, by the way,’ he said.

‘We’re probably not going to display the paper anymore in the White House. We haven’t taken the step of throwing them out,’ Trump added.

Reporters were overheard at the White House when the news broke, asking if this was a ‘Trump hissy fit’ or a real decision.

But by Friday night, CNN and Politico released statements defending their reporters.

‘POLITICO will continue to fairly report on this White House and future ones,’ the newspaper said in a statement. 

‘We will vigorously defend our First Amendment rights against any attempt to restrict them. The claims that POLITICO received government subsidies are false and have been thoroughly debunked,’ it noted.

A number of outlets and press freedom organizations have since expressed their support for the ousted journalists.

‘The president said it plainly in the Oval Office, describing his own planned action as a “ban on the free press,”‘ Jacqui Heinrich, president of the White House Correspondents Association, said in a statement.  

‘The Constitution protects the freedom of the press from government interference. That protection does not depend on whether the president likes a news organization’s coverage, agrees with its reporting, or approves of the questions its journalists ask.

‘This is about more than the rights of journalists. It is about the right of the American people to receive a full and independent account of the activities, policies and decisions of whoever occupies the nation’s highest office.

‘The WHCA stands in defense of our colleagues at CNN, MSNOW, and Politico who are being singled out for doing their jobs.’

Similarly, National Press Club President Mark Schoeff Jr said he condemns Trump’s decision.

‘Banning news organization from the White House based on the administration’s disapproval of their coverage is a clear attempt to control which voices are allowed to witness and report on the exercise of presidential power,’ he argued.

‘Every American should understand what is at stake,’ Schoeff continued. ‘If implemented, this ban would mark an unprecedented assault on press freedom.

‘The National Press Club calls on the President to reverse this declaration immediately.’

Schoeff then went on to argue that Trump is ‘continuing his relentless and disturbing effort to bully the news media,’ after he tried to keep AP reporters from the White House when the outlet decided not to enact his name changes for the Gulf of America.

‘This simply can’t happen in a democracy that has depended on a free and independent press to cover the country’s leaders for 250 years,’ he said. 

‘The First Amendment does not permit the government to pick and choose which journalists are allowed to do their jobs,’ Schoeff argued.

‘When the President of the United States bars credentialed news organizations from access to his administration, he weakens one of the nation’s strongest checks on those who hold power.

‘A government confident in its actions should never fear independent scrutiny,’ he noted. 

‘A free press exists to ask difficult questions, uncover uncomfortable facts and inform the American people. By barring major national news outlets from the White House, the administration is not only attacking individual outlets – it is directly attacking every reporter’s constitutionally-protected right to hold power to account, regardless of political party.

‘The scrutiny a president receives from the White House Press Corps benefits readers, viewers and listeners across the country, giving Americans a greater understanding of government policies.

‘The message today’s action sends is alarming,’ Schoeff concluded. ‘It tells other news organizations to soften their coverage. It tells reporters to think twice before asking difficult questions or else lose access. And it leaves the American people knowing less about the government that serves them.’

 The Daily Mail has reached out to CNN for comment.

A Florida couple says their hopes of having a biologically related child were shattered after discovering that a fertility clinic allegedly used sperm from an unknown man to create the embryo that became their daughter.

Joshua and Natalie Strong have filed a lawsuit against Jacksonville-based Brown Fertility, its medical director, Dr. Samuel Brown, and 10 other defendants. The suit alleges a clinic error led to their now-1-year-old daughter being biologically fathered by a stranger, according to court documents obtained by The Post.

“They trusted Brown Fertility, as well as its founder and owner, Samuel E. Brown, M.D., with the family they hoped to build. That trust was betrayed,” the couple said in the lawsuit, which was filed Thursday in Duval County Circuit Court.

“The Strongs are now raising a daughter whose paternity test confirms that another man, not Joshua, fathered her.”

The married couple had turned to Brown Fertility while trying to have children together, but say they were devastated by the DNA test results involving their daughter.

“It’s a daily struggle with the emotional aspect of it because you do have sadness and anger in the same day, you also have joy and love,” Joshua Strong told Jacksonville’s First Coast News.

Because Joshua had undergone a vasectomy years earlier, he needed an invasive sperm-retrieval procedure. The procedure produced four vials of sperm.

The couple paid tens of thousands of dollars for treatment at Brown Fertility, which was named among “America’s Best Fertility Clinics” in 2025.

According to the lawsuit, the sperm vials were provided to the clinic with the explicit understanding that they would be used to fertilize Natalie’s oocytes, creating embryos that would later be transferred to her.

Natalie delivered a baby girl in June 2025, though the couple said they began noticing that something was wrong almost immediately.

“Within the first day of life, routine newborn blood typing produced a result that did not fit,” the suit alleged. “The Strongs’ daughter typed Blood Type B Positive. That result is biologically impossible given Natalie’s blood type, O Negative, and Joshua’s blood type, A Negative.”

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Additional DNA testing later revealed there was a 0% probability Joshua was the newborn’s father

“It took away the euphoria of having a baby,” Natalie told the outlet. “It was my first child, I was in heaven. It was the best day of my life and then when that hit us, it took all the happiness away, which we should have had for a very long time.”

The couple has told the clinic of the test results but have not gotten answers.

“Despite irrefutable DNA evidence, Brown Fertility and Dr. Brown have refused to admit what they did, refused to account for Joshua’s missing sperm, and refused to take responsibility,” the suit says.

It was the second time the couple had gone through the IVF process with the clinic, as Natalie had had a miscarriage one month into their first try in mid-2024.

The couple claims Brown Fertility had used the wrong sperm for the first pregnancy too, and the location of Joshua’s sperm was revealed.

The couple alleged the clinic has not revealed where Joshua’s sperm has gone, whether it was misplaced, discarded or used to create another couple’s embryo without their knowledge.

“The Strongs do not know whether Joshua has biological children, fathered without his knowledge, being raised today by other Brown Fertility patients who have no idea,” the suit says

The Strongs are seeking damages in excess of $50,000 and a trial by jury in the case.

“Natalie suffers the daily knowledge that her body was used, twice, to carry a stranger’s child,” the lawsuit says.

“Joshua suffers the daily knowledge that the daughter he is raising bears no biological connection to him, the loss of the irreplaceable genetic future he believed he was building with his wife, and the unending question of what became of his cryopreserved sperm.”