Royal news: William and Kate announce Earthshot Prize winners as trip overshadowed by palace racism row

Meghan Markle has been seen boarding a private jet in Indianapolis after appearing at a female empowerment event in the city.

Both the Duchess of Sussex and her husband Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, are vocal environmental activists and have proclaimed through Archewell, the organisation they founded, that they will achieve net-zero emissions by the end of the decade.

It comes after the Prince and Princess of Wales flew comemrcial to Boston for the Earthshot Prize awards, which encourages innovation in sustainability and tackling climate change.

My colleagues Oliver O’Conneell and Johanna Chisholm report:

As Prince William and Kate Middleton prepare to return to the UK amid a racism scandal involving his godmother, Lady Susan Hussey, we take a closer look at similar rows to have hit Buckingham Palace in recent years.

Zoe Tidman draws back the curtain:

Graham Norton took aim at the royal family during the opening of his eponymous chat show on Friday (2 December).

“I couldn’t be more thrilled and fascinated if I were Prince William looking at a basketball,” Norton said while showing a photo of Prince William looking perplexed at a basketball when he and Kate Middleton attended a recent basketball match in Boston, USA.

“Has he never seen one before?” He asked incredulously. “It’s like his godmother talking to a Black person.”

Tom Murray reports:

What Lady Susan Hussey said to Ngozi Fulani didn’t shock The Independent’s Race Correspondent, Nadine White. Instead, she writes, “it reeks of the institution’s supremacy and privilege”.

Read her op-ed here:

Some people have called out the Earthshot Prize for having celebrities, as well as Prince William and Princess Kate, flown to Boston for the glitzy award ceremony - but not the winners.

The ceremony, which was attended by famous faces such as David Beckham, Ellie Goulding, Rami Malek, Chloe and Halle Bailey, and Annie Lennox, saw the five Earthshot Prize winners accepting their awards from their home countries via video link.

According to The Telegraph, the finalists were filmed on their home turf in order to “reduce the carbon footprint” of the event.

But social media users have criticised the royal couple and the event for not getting them to the event to accept their £1m prize in person. It is unclear if all the finalists were invited to do so or declined.

One person wrote: “So William and Kate flew in celebrities,but the actual recipients of the awards who actually do the work for the environment had to be on video?”

Another branded the awards ceremony a “complete waste of time” and a “vanity project” for the Prince and Princess of Wales. They added: “Where were the actual winners of this award?! Oh right, back home, not even invited to the ceremony that was supposedly celebrating their innovations. How insulting!”

“How did all the ‘important’ people like William, Kate, Beckham etc get to this event? On their bicycles?” a third asked sarcastically.

The Earthshot Prize awards ceremony saw numerous celebrities and public figures descending on Boston to attend the glamorous events.

Take a look at who Prince William and Princess Kate met on Friday night.

The Duke of Sussex has dropped a surprise for bereaved military children for Christmas.

It comes after Netflix released the trailer for his and Meghan Markle’s forthcoming documentary.

See Prince Harry’s festive surprise:

Prince William’s meeting in Boston with US president Joe Biden saw around 100 protesters hurl abuse at the two men.

The protesters could be heard shouting abusive slogans such as “F*** the royal family” and “Joe Biden is a scab” as the men met at the John F Kennedy Presidential Library in the city.

Read Graeme Massie’s report here: