Britain's Queen Elizabeth II was due to start her first state visit to the US in 16 years yesterday to mark the 400th anniversary of the country's first permanent English settlement.
After first visiting Jamestown for the 350th anniversary in 1957, the queen was due to return to the Virginia town to mark the founding of a settlement that went from fraught beginnings to establish history's greatest superpower.
Elizabeth was due to start her six-day trip in the Virginia state capital Richmond, delivering a speech to a joint session of the state's legislature, which is the New World's oldest representative body.
The visit, which will also take in a White House state dinner with US President George W. Bush, marks the nations' shared history, as well as future partnerships in science, education and innovation, Buckingham Palace said.
The trip comes just weeks after the Virginia Tech massacre in which 32 students and teachers were killed in the US' deadliest school shooting. The queen will pay tribute to the victims during her time in the eastern US state. Details are still being finalized, but a royal visit to the campus has been ruled out.
The queen, an avid horse racing fan, will also fulfill a lifelong ambition to watch the Kentucky Derby after the Virginia leg on May 5.
In Richmond yesterday, Elizabeth was due to be feted with a "Royal Welcome" in the town's neo-classical Capitol Square, featuring a showcase of Virginia music from blues to jazz, bluegrass to gospel.
"Considering the queen's a foreign alien, so to speak, she's well loved here in Virginia, where people remain pretty anglophile," retired corporate lawyer Forrest Morgan, 65, said.
Morgan now does voluntary work taking visitors around the site of the original Jamestown fort, just over an hour's drive from Richmond, which the queen and her husband, Prince Philip, are scheduled to tour today.
Prince Philip was yesterday also to inspect a replica of the Susan Constant, the largest of three ships that brought the original settlers, whose adventurous leader, Captain John Smith, now stands in statue by the fort.
The couple were to attend a lunch yesterday with Virginia Governor Tim Kaine and 400 other guests, before visiting William and Mary College, the US' second-oldest university founded in 1693, in nearby Williamsburg.
After their day at the races, the royal couple fly to Washington and meet Bush and his wife Laura at the White House on Monday, the ceremonial climax of the queen's first state visit to the US since 1991.
Before returning home late on Tuesday, the royal couple are to tour NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center outside Washington, visit the World War II National Memorial and give a return banquet for the Bushes at the British ambassador's residence.
Also see story:
Kentucky prepares for royal visit
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique