London

A Lonely Protest in Beijing Inspires Young Chinese to Find Their Voice

“I thought to myself that there are many Chinese who also want freedom and democracy,” she said. “But where are you? Where can I find you? If we meet on the street, how can we recognize each other?”

At about 4 the next morning, she went downstairs from her dorm room to print some posters. She was nervous about running into other Chinese students, most of whom she would describe as “little pinks,” or pro-Beijing youths. She wore a mask to avoid cameras, even though she had seldom worn one since arriving in London a few weeks ago.

She was even more nervous putting up the posters on campus. Every time she saw an East Asian face, she would run to hide in a corridor or a restroom. She was afraid they could report her to the embassy or post photos of her on social media. Her parents are still in China, so she needs to take their safety into account.

After putting up the posters all over her campus, she felt much more at peace with herself.

A week later, when a new chat group titled “‘My Duty’ Democracy Wall in London” was set up on the messaging app Telegram, Kathy was one of the first to join. Within a day, more than 200 Chinese had also signed up. By Sunday, four days later, there were more than 400 members. Most introduced themselves as students and professionals in the U.K. Many said they had joined to find like-minded people because they, like Kathy, didn’t know whom to trust and felt lonely and powerless.

Citizens Daily CN, the Instagram account, organized Telegram chat groups in London, New York, Toronto and two other places to provide a safe online space for overseas Chinese to exchange views. Most people use online handles that disguise their identity.

They have discussed the depths of their frustration with political apathy and the best way to deal with pro-Beijing youth. Quite a few admitted that they were once nationalistic themselves, but added that China’s harsh zero-Covid policy had made them realize the importance of having a government accountable to its people. More important, they discussed what further actions they could take.

On Sunday, Kathy, who is in her early 20s, joined a demonstration for the first time in her life. For safety, she wore a mask and sunglasses, even though it was dark when the protest reached the Chinese Embassy in London. A young Chinese woman started chanting slogans made popular by the Bridge Man: “Students, workers, let’s strike. Depose the despotic traitor Xi Jinping.”

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Liz Truss’s Departure Creates Economic Uncertainty As Inflation Rises

The fall of Liz Truss, Britain’s prime minister for just six tumultuous weeks, has plunged the nation into another phase of economic uncertainty.

When Ms. Truss announced her resignation on Thursday as Conservative Party leader, saying she would stand down as prime minister, the markets that had rebelled against her fiscal policies engaged in a weak and short-lived rally. Investors were left wondering who would be the new leader and what lay ahead for Britain’s economic policy. On Friday morning, government bonds were falling, pushing yields higher, and the pound was dropping.

“It’s a leap into the unknown,” said Antoine Bouvet, an interest rates strategist at ING.

Overall the initial reaction, Mr. Bouvet added, suggested that investors expect that a new prime minister will go ahead with fiscal plans generally supported by the market. But he said it was too early to be sure.

“Let’s see who gets elected leader and what they say on fiscal policy,” he said.

The next prime minister, the third this year, will face a long list of economic challenges. Annual inflation topped 10 percent last month as food prices rose at their fastest pace in more than 40 years. Wages haven’t kept up with rising prices, bringing about a cost-of-living crisis and labor unrest. There is a deepening slump in consumer spending with data on Friday showing people were buying less than before the pandemic. Interest rates are set to rise even as the economy stagnates. And Russia’s war in Ukraine is still rippling through the global economy, especially the energy market.

provoked extraordinary volatility in markets at the end of September when her first chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, announced a plan for widespread tax cuts and huge spending, to be financed by borrowing. Amid the highest inflation in four decades and rising interest rates, markets deemed the plan, delivered without any independent assessment, a rupture in Britain’s reputation for fiscal credibility. The pound dropped to a record low, and government bond yields shot up so violently the central bank was forced to intervene to stop a crisis in the pension funds industry.

began to settle markets. However, bond yields remain noticeably higher than they were before the September tax plan was announced, as investors still demand a higher premium to lend to Britain. On Thursday, 10-year government bond yields closed at 3.91 percent, up from 3.50 percent on Sept. 22, the day before Mr. Kwarteng’s policy announcement.

Ms. Truss’s tenure as prime minister, the shortest in British history, was undone by economic policies that harked back to the trickle-down economics of the 1980s, built on the belief that tax cuts for the wealthy were fair and would lead to investment and economic growth that would benefit everyone.

fixed rates have settled higher.

Meanwhile, the new government is likely to be focused on restoring the government’s fiscal credibility. Mr. Hunt is set to deliver a “medium-term fiscal plan,” with spending and tax measures, on Oct. 31. He said he expected to make “difficult” spending cuts as he planned to show that debt levels were falling in the medium term.

It will be accompanied by an independent assessment of the fiscal and economic impact of the policies by the Office for Budget Responsibility, a government watchdog.

While markets have cheered the government’s promise to have its policies independently reviewed, questions remain about how the gap in the public finances can be closed. Economists say there is very little room in stretched department budgets to make cuts. That has led to concerns of a return to austerity measures, reminiscent of the spending cuts after the 2008 financial crisis.

“There is a danger,” Mr. Chadha said, “that we end up with tighter fiscal policy than actually is appropriate given the shock that many households are suffering.” This could make it harder to support people suffering amid rising food and energy prices. But Mr. Chadha argues that it’s clear what needs to happen next: a complete elimination of unfunded tax cuts and careful planning on how to support vulnerable households.

The chancellor could also end up having a lot more autonomy over fiscal policy than the prime minister, he added.

“The best outcome for markets would be a rapid rallying of the parliamentary Conservative Party around a single candidate” who would validate Mr. Hunt’s approach and the timing of the Oct. 31 report, Trevor Greetham, a portfolio manager at Royal London Asset Management, said in a written comment.

Three days after the fiscal statement, on Nov. 3, Bank of England policymakers will announce their next interest rate decisions.

Bond investors are trying to parse how the central bank will react to the rapidly changing fiscal news. On Thursday, before Ms. Truss’s resignation, Ben Broadbent, a member of the central bank’s rate-setting committee, indicated that policymakers might not need to raise interest rates as much as markets currently expect. Traders are betting that the bank will raise rates above 5 percent next year, from 2.25 percent.

The bank could raise rates less than expected next year partly because the economy is forecast to shrink over the year. The International Monetary Fund predicted that the British economy would go from 3.6 percent growth this year to a 0.3 percent contraction next year.

That’s a mild recession compared with some other forecasts, but it would only compound the longstanding economic problems that Britain faced, including weak investment, low productivity growth and businesses’ inability to find employees with the right skills. These were among the challenges that Ms. Truss said she would resolve by shaking up the status quo and targeting economic growth of 2.5 percent a year.

Most economists didn’t believe that “Trussonomics,” as her policies were called, would deliver this economic growth. Instead, they predicted the policies would prolong the country’s inflation problem.

Despite the change in leadership, analysts don’t expect a big rally in Britain’s financial markets. The nation’s international standing could take a long time to recover.

“It takes years to build a reputation and one day to undo it,” Mr. Bouvet said, adding, “Investors will come progressively back to the U.K.,” but it won’t be quickly.

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Peter Thiel, Major U.S. Political Donor, Is Said to Pursue Maltese Citizenship

A spokesman for Mr. Angermayer, who has based his family office and other business ventures in Malta, did not respond to requests for comment.

In early 2021, Thiel Capital also became a shareholder in a Malta entity through a byzantine series of developments. The deal involved Coru, a Mexican online financial advice start-up, which has a parent company incorporated in London.

Entities controlled by Mr. Thiel and Mr. Danzeisen, his husband, were among Coru’s biggest owners, corporate filings show. The start-up needed additional funding in late 2020, but its investors could not reach an agreement to put more cash in, said two former investors. The company went into administration, the equivalent of bankruptcy.

Around that time, Mr. Thiel, Mr. Danzeisen and several other Coru investors established a company in Malta called EUM Holdings Melite Ltd., Maltese records show. That company bought Coru’s shares out of administration for about $100,000, according to British records. The records do not detail EUM’s business activities.

Now Coru is owned by EUM. Its shareholders include Mr. Thiel, Mr. Danzeisen, Richard Li — a son of Hong Kong’s richest man, Li Ka-shing — and a group with a former Nicaraguan government official and a scion of the Spanish family that made a fortune selling Lladró porcelain figurines.

Mr. Thiel began exploring Maltese citizenship around that time, said people familiar with the process. By late 2021, documents show, he was far along in the application process and retained an agency that fielded questions from the Maltese government about his businesses and political activities.

The questions included Mr. Thiel’s role with Palantir Technologies, a data analytics company he founded that works with governments and corporations, and his political activity supporting Mr. Trump.

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In Global Slowdown, China Holds Sway Over Countries’ Fates

BEIJING — When Suriname couldn’t make its debt payments, a Chinese state bank seized the money from one of the South American country’s accounts.

As Pakistan has struggled to cope with a devastating flood that has inundated a third of the country, its loan repayments to China have been rising fast.

When Kenyans and Angolans went to the polls in presidential elections in August, the countries’ Chinese loans, and how to repay them, were a hot-button political issue.

Across much of the developing world, China finds itself in an uncomfortable position, a geopolitical giant that now holds significant sway over the financial futures of many nations but is also owed huge sums of money that may never be repaid in full.

the lender of choice for many nations over the past decade, doling out funds for governments to build bullet trains, hydroelectric dams, airports and superhighways. As inflation has climbed and economies have weakened, China has the power to cut them off, lend more or, in its most accommodating moments, forgive small portions of their debts.

The economic distress in poor countries is palpable, given the lingering effects of the pandemic, coupled with high food and energy prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Many borrowed heavily from China. In Pakistan, overall public debt has more than doubled over the past decade, with loans from China growing fastest; in Kenya, public debt is up ninefold and in Suriname tenfold.

two hydroelectric dams in southern Patagonia. Bradley Parks, the executive director of AidData, a research institute at William and Mary, a university in Williamsburg, Va., estimated that Argentina’s twice-a-year interest payment was $87 million in January and $137 million in July.

Argentina will owe a payment of over $170 million on the loan in January if interest rates keep rising at the same pace, he calculated. Argentina’s finance ministry did not respond to emails and text messages about the loan.

According to the I.M.F., three-fifths of the world’s developing countries are now having considerable trouble repaying loans or have already fallen behind on their debts. More than half the world’s poor countries owe more to China than to all Western governments combined.

For now, Chinese officials in poor countries face unpleasant jobs as debt collectors.

“You have a lot more influence when you’re providing the loan,” said Brad Setser, an international payments specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations, “than when you’re begging for repayment.”

Abdi Latif Dahir in Nairobi, Emily Schmall in New Delhi, Skandha Gunasekara in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Salman Masood in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed reporting. Li You and Ana Lankes contributed research.

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British Ruling Pins Blame on Social Media for Teenager’s Suicide

In January 2019, Mr. Russell went public with Molly’s story. Outraged that his young daughter could view such bleak content so easily and convinced that it had played a role in her death, he sat for a TV interview with the BBC that resulted in front-page stories across British newsstands.

Mr. Russell, a television director, urged the coroner reviewing Molly’s case to go beyond what is often a formulaic process, and to explore the role of social media. Mr. Walker agreed after seeing a sample of Molly’s social media history.

That resulted in a yearslong effort to get access to Molly’s social media data. The family did not know her iPhone passcode, but the London police were able to bypass it to extract 30,000 pages of material. After a lengthy battle, Meta agreed to provide more than 16,000 pages from her Instagram, such a volume that it delayed the start of the inquest. Merry Varney, a lawyer with the Leigh Day law firm who worked on the case through a legal aid program, said it had taken more than 1,000 hours to review the content.

What they found was that Molly had lived something of a double life. While she was a regular teenager to family, friends and teachers, her existence online was much bleaker.

In the six months before Molly died, she shared, liked or saved 16,300 pieces of content on Instagram. About 2,100 of those posts, or about 12 per day, were related to suicide, self-harm and depression, according to data that Meta disclosed to her family. Many accounts she interacted with were dedicated to sharing only depressive and suicidal material, often using hashtags that linked to other explicit content.

Many posts glorified inner struggle, hiding emotional duress and telling others “I’m fine.” Molly went on binges of liking and saving graphic depictions of suicide and self-harm, once after 3 a.m., according to a timeline of her Instagram usage.

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U.K. Borrowers React to Soaring Interest Rates in Mortgage Market

LOUGHTON, England — After nearly two decades of renting in one of the world’s most expensive cities, the Szostek family began the week almost certain that they would finally own a home.

Transplants to London who fell in love as housemates, Laetitia Anne, an operations manager from France and her husband, Maciej Szostek, a chef from Poland, had long dreamed of being homeowners. They had waited out the uncertain pandemic years and worked overtime shifts to save up for the deposit for a mortgage on a three-bedroom apartment in a neighborhood outside London. Their 13-year-old twins were excited they could finally paint the walls.

That was before British financial markets were upended, with the pound briefly hitting a record low against the dollar on Monday and interest rates soaring so rapidly that the Bank of England was forced to intervene to restore order. The economic situation was so volatile that some mortgage lenders temporarily withdrew many products.

By Tuesday evening, the Szostek family learned the bad news: The loan that they were close to securing had fallen through. Suddenly, they were scrambling to find another lender as interest rates climb higher.

loss of purchasing power over time, meaning your dollar will not go as far tomorrow as it did today. It is typically expressed as the annual change in prices for everyday goods and services such as food, furniture, apparel, transportation and toys.

Rising home prices and income inequality priced many out of the market, but for strivers who aspired to homeownership, the latest ruptures to the economy hit hard. The release of the new government’s sweeping plan for debt-funded tax cuts led to a big uptick in interest rates this week that roiled the mortgage market. Many homeowners are calculating their potential future mortgage payments with alarm, amid soaring energy and food prices and a general cost-of-living crisis.

Before they were informed they were no longer eligible, the family had been in the final stages of applying for a five-year fixed-rate mortgage on an apartment priced at £519,000, or around $576,000, in the leafy parish of Loughton, a town about 40 minutes north of London by train where the streets fill with students in the afternoon and the properties span from lower-end apartments to million-pound mansions.

according to the Financial Conduct Authority. And more than a third of all mortgages are on fixed rates that expire within the next two years, most likely exposing those borrowers to higher rates, too. By contrast, the vast majority of mortgages in the United States are locked in for 30-year fixed terms.

And the abrupt surge in interest rates could threaten to set off a housing market crisis, analysts at Oxford Economics wrote in a note on Friday, adding that if mortgage rates stayed at the levels now being offered, that would suggest that house prices were around 30 percent overvalued “based on the affordability of mortgage payment.”

“This just adds a significant further strain to finances in the order of hundreds of pounds a month,” said David Sturrock, a senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, adding that the squeeze on household budgets will affect the broader economy.

Uncertainty and even panic was clear this week, with many homeowners seeking financial advice. Mortgage brokers said they were receiving a higher volume of inquiries than normal from people stressed about refinancing their loans.

“You can feel the fear in people’s voices,” said Caroline Opie, a mortgage broker working with Ms. Anne who said she had not seen this level of worry in a long time. One couple this week even called her the morning of their wedding, she said, to set an appointment to refinance their mortgage next week.

the war in Ukraine. “Something has got to give,” he said. “Prices are too high anyway.”

To save for the deposit, Mr. Szostek, 37, picked up construction shifts and cleaning jobs when restaurants closed during Covid-19 lockdowns. A £5,000 inheritance from Ms. Anne’s grandfather went into their deposit fund. At a 3.99 percent interest rate, the mortgage repayments were set to be about £2,200 a month.

“I wanted to feel at home for real,” said Ms. Anne, adding she would have been the first in her family to own a property. Mr. Szostek called it “a lifelong dream.”

On Wednesday night, that dream still seemed in reach: The mortgage dealer Ms. Opie had found another loan, which they rushed to apply for.

The higher interest rate — 4.6 percent — will mean their new monthly mortgage payment will be £2,400, the upper limit of what the Szostek family can afford. Still, they felt lucky to secure anything at all, hoping it will mean their promises to their children — of bigger bedrooms, more space, freedom to decorate how they like — will materialize.

They would wait to celebrate, Mr. Szostek said, until they had the keys in hand.

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Bespoke Tailor Stitches Together A Legacy

Bespoke suit-making for men is a dying art form — thanks to fast fashion, most men don’t wear such clothes to work anymore.

Leonard Logsdail is a one-of-a-kind craftsman, like the suits he makes.

“When I have the fabric on my board, I can see in my mind’s eye what it’s going to look like on the on the client,” said Logsdail.

A bespoke tailor by trade, Logsdail has spent over 50 years creating custom clothes based on each customer’s unique request and body measurements.

“Bespoke tailoring comes from the word bespoken. Somebody walks in and talks an order. They say, ‘I would like such and such a blue.’ And I go to the fabrics and show them the fabrics. And they talk their way through,” said Logsdail.

It’s an artform considered the highest level of tailoring.

“I make a suit particular for one person and it only fits one person. And I fit it to that body,” he said.

It requires meticulous attention to detail.

“Somebody walks through the door, and I stand up the front here and watch them as they come from the elevator to me. So, I’ve got their body figuration in their stance, because as soon as you get the tape measure out, they remember everything their mother ever told them about standing up straight and holding in their stomach, which is not how you make the suit. You’ve got to be the body that they are,” said Logsdail.

Logsdail’s Manhattan shop in midtown is tucked above the bustling streets on a quiet, but busy floor, with fabrics and finished suits on display. But his career began along Savile Row, the section of London famous for producing the best bespoke tailors.

“So, I come from one of the poorest areas of London where, you know, we were taught to be fodders for industry. It’s the best way to describe it. Trash collectors, road sweepers, work in factories. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I knew everything I didn’t want to do. I had no idea. So, I went to a tailoring school as a stopgap. And it’s like I was home when I went there,” he said.

But learning the trade didn’t come without hurdles.

“I had about seven or eight suits that were thrown back at me. I’d paid for the cloth, I’d paid for the making, and then I had to give the deposit back and it really hurt. And that’s when I learned it’s not my suit, it’s your suit. I think that was one of the real pivotal moments, because I learned if I needed to earn money and feed myself at the time, that I had to get paid for what I did,” said Logsdail.

Logsdail says that lesson proved invaluable in helping him hone a skill that ultimately caught the attention of Hollywood.

“I was sitting on one of those chairs out the front one day, talking to a friend of mine from San Francisco, the phone rang and when I picked it up there was this lady on the phone, and she said, my name is Michelle and we’re working on this movie called The Good Shepherd. And we wondered if you be interested in making a suit for Robert De Niro,” said Logsdail.

Since that call, Logsdail has gone on to tailor suits for dozens of movies, some of which have led to incredible encounters.

“One of them was “Wall Street 2,” because I really enjoyed working with Michael Douglas. I thought he was a sweetheart and the other one was “Mary Poppins 2,” because I got to make a suit for Dick Van Dike. I mean, I’ve worked with DiCaprio, Denzel Washington, you name them, I’ve worked with them. He’s the only person I was interested in having to photograph,” he said.

But despite how popular Logsdail’s work is with clients in Hollywood, New York and abroad, he says it’s an art form with an uncertain future. It’s a labor of love in desperate need of a new generation of tailors with the patience and fortitude to quite literally stitch on.

“It’s been a challenge to keep business going. And now it’s been difficult to get workers because it’s much easier to go and start earning money sitting at the computer than it is learning how to sew with a needle and thread,” he said.

Joining this fraternity of bespoke tailors would be membership in a very small club

“I believe I’m the only person that does exactly what I do in New York. And I think there’s only four or five in the whole United States now. It’s a dying breed. So, anybody who is looking, needs to start coming round and seeing all these guys because they ain’t going to be around for much longer,” said Logsdail.

Logsdail cites growing competition from companies making “made to measure” suits that cost less, and take far less time to produce.

“For a bespoke suit, pretty much all the fabrics I get out there are $1,800-$1,900 for a two-piece suit. But as I said, I’ve got some other ones [that] will cost you $35-$40,000 for a bespoke suit,” he said.

And his cheaper competitors can deliver their suits quicker.

“When somebody comes in now, I’m telling them to probably three months at least before they’ll see the suit, because, you know, I have one pair of hands… I’m sitting talking with you now, which means I’m not cutting my suits out. And so, the tailors have got one pair of hands. I can only work on one suit at a time. So, you know, it’s finite the amount of clothes we can make on any given week.”

While a bespoke suit is steep in price and time commitment, Logsdail swears it’s an investment customers you can truly wear for decades to come.

“You know, I say this all the time, that fashion goes out of style, but style does not go out of fashion. So, if you have something made here and if you want a fashion forward, yeah, I’ll do it. But when the fashion changes, that suit’s old. But if you have something that’s made with style, you can wear it and it’s relevant from 1993 up to here,” said Logsdail.

: newsy.com

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Queen Elizabeth II Mourned At Funeral By Britain And World

By Associated Press
September 19, 2022

Pallbearers carried the coffin into Westminster Abbey, where around 2,000 people gathered to mourn her.

Britain and the world said a final goodbye to Queen Elizabeth II at a state funeral Monday that drew presidents and kings, princes and prime ministers — and crowds who massed along the streets of London to honor a monarch whose 70-year reign defined an age.

A day packed with events in London and Windsor began early when the doors of 900-year-old Westminster Hall were closed to mourners after hundreds of thousands had filed in front of her flag-draped coffin. Many had waited for hours in line, including through cold nights, to attend the lying in state in an outpouring of collective grief and respect.

“I felt like I had to come and pay my final respects to our majestic queen. She has done so much for us and just a little thank you really from the people,” said Tracy Dobson, who was among the last to join the line.

In a country known for pomp and pageantry, the first state funeral since Winston Churchill’s was filled with spectacle: 142 Royal Navy sailors drew the gun carriage carrying Elizabeth’s coffin to Westminster Abbey, with King Charles III and his sons, Princes William and Harry, walking behind as bagpipers played. Pallbearers carried the coffin into the abbey, where around 2,000 people ranging from world leaders to health care workers gathered to mourn her. Ahead of the service, a bell tolled 96 times — once a minute for each year of her life.

“Here, where Queen Elizabeth was married and crowned, we gather from across the nation, from the Commonwealth, and from the nations of the world, to mourn our loss, to remember her long life of selfless service, and in sure confidence to commit her to the mercy of God our maker and redeemer,” the dean of the medieval abbey, David Hoyle, told the mourners, as the funeral opened.

It drew to a close with two minutes of silence observed across the United Kingdom. The attendees then sang the national anthem.

Monday has been declared a public holiday in honor of Elizabeth, who died Sept. 8 — and hundreds of thousands of people descended on central London to partake in the historic moment. Long before the service began, city authorities said viewing areas along the route of the funeral’s procession were full.

Millions more had been expected to tune into the funeral live on television, and crowds flocked to parks and public spaces across the U.K. to watch it on screens. Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby noted during the funeral that “few leaders receive the outpouring of love we have seen” for Elizabeth.

On the evening before, Charles issued a message of thanks to people in the U.K. and around the world, saying he and his wife Camilla, the queen consort, have been “moved beyond measure” by the large numbers of people who have turned out to pay their respects to the queen.

Following the funeral, the coffin — accompanied by units of the armed forces in dress uniforms and members of her family — was brought through the capital’s streets.

At Wellington Arch near Hyde Park, it will be placed in a hearse to be driven to Windsor Castle — where Elizabeth spent much of her time — for another procession before a committal service in St. George’s Chapel. She will be laid to rest with her late husband, Prince Philip, at a private family service.

U.S. President Joe Biden was among leaders to pay their respects at the queen’s coffin on Sunday as thousands of police, hundreds of British troops and an army of officials made final preparations for the funeral.

President Biden called Queen Elizabeth II “decent” and “honorable” and “all about service” as he signed the condolence book, saying his heart went out to the royal family.

People across Britain paused for a minute of silence at 8 p.m. Sunday in memory of the only monarch most have ever known. At Westminster Hall, the constant stream of mourners paused for 60 seconds as people observed the minute of reflection in deep silence.

In Windsor, rain began to fall as the crowd fell silent for the moment of reflection. Some camped overnight outside the castle in order to reserve the best spots to view the queen’s coffin.

Jilly Fitzgerald, who was in Windsor, said there was a sense of community among the mourners as they prepared to wait hours to see the procession carrying the queen’s coffin.

“It’s good to be with all the people who are all feeling the same. It’s like a big family because everyone feels that … the queen was part of their family,” she said.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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President Joe Biden And First Lady Jill Biden Remember The Queen

The president is among scores of world leaders who are attending her state funeral service on Monday at Westminster Abbey in London.

For U.S. President Joe Biden, it was the crumpets. For his wife, first lady Jill Biden, it was the tea.

Joe and Jill Biden on Sunday helped honor Queen Elizabeth II by sharing memories of their tea time last year when she invited them to join her at Windsor Castle, near London.

The president, who said after that 2021 visit that Elizabeth reminded him of his late mother, recalled Sunday that she kept offering him crumpets. He did not refuse.

“I kept eating everything she put in front of me,” he said. “But she was the same in person as … her image: decent, honorable, and all about service.”

The queen, who was Britain’s longest-serving monarch, died earlier this month after a 70-year reign. President Biden is among hundreds of heads of state and other dignitaries who are in London to attend her state funeral service Monday at Westminster Abbey.

The first lady told The Associated Press in a telephone interview after she and the president attended a reception at Buckingham Palace that “what really impressed me” about the queen was “just how warm and gracious she was.”

“I loved her sense of curiosity. She wanted to know all about American politics and so she asked Joe question after question,” Jill Biden said. She said sitting in Elizabeth’s living room was “almost like being, you know, with your grandmother.”

“And she said, ‘Let me pour the tea,’ and we said, ‘No, no, let us help,’ and she said ‘Oh, no, no, no, I’ll get this. You sit down,'” Jill Biden said. “And it was just a very special moment with a very special woman.”

The Bidens paid their respects to the queen on Sunday by traveling to Westminster Hall, where she has been lying in state, to stand before the monarch’s coffin in the presence of thousands of mourners who had spent hours upon hours waiting to file past.

They then signed condolence books at Lancaster House before going to Buckingham Palace for a reception hosted by King Charles III and other royal family members for the world leaders who flew in for the funeral.

After signing the book, President Biden said his his heart goes out to the royal family because the queen’s death has left it with a “giant hole.”

“Sometimes you think you’ll never, you’ll never overcome it,” said President Biden, who often speaks in very personal terms about loss following the death of his first wife and infant daughter, and later an adult son. “But as I’ve told the king, she’s going to be with him every step of the way — every minute, every moment. And that’s a reassuring notion.”

While standing alongside the coffin on Sunday, the first lady said, she watched a little boy dressed in a Boy Scout uniform come in and give the queen a three-finger salute.

“I mean, it just gave me a lump in my throat,” she said, and showed “how much the people really loved their queen, no matter their ages.”

President Biden wrote in the condolence book that the queen “was admired around the world for her unwavering commitment to service.”

The first lady signed a separate condolence book for spouses and ambassadors, writing “Queen Elizabeth lived her life for the people. She served with wisdom and grace. We will never forget her warmth, kindness and the conversations we shared.”

In the interview, Jill Biden cautioned that there’s a “human piece” to the queen’s death.

Speaking of Charles, she said: “He is the king, but no one should forget, he lost his mother and, you know, Prince William lost a grandmother. Sometimes we tend to forget the really human piece of this and the sorrow that they … have to bear and how they have to grieve in public. But they seem to be doing OK,” she said.

More than 2,000 people were expected at Westminster Abbey for Monday’s funeral.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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World Leaders Head To London For Queen Elizabeth II Funeral

U.S. President Joe Biden and other dignitaries are arriving in London for the funeral.

Thousands of police, hundreds of troops and an army of officials made final preparations Sunday for the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II — a spectacular display of national mourning that will also be the biggest gathering of world leaders for years.

U.S. President Joe Biden and other dignitaries are arriving in London for the funeral, to which around 500 royals, heads of state and heads of government from around the globe have been invited.

Thousands of people continued to line up around the clock to file past the queen’s coffin as it lies in state at Parliament’s Westminster Hall, braving chilly overnight temperatures and waits of up to 17 hours. The queen’s eight grandchildren, led by heir to the throne Prince William, circled the coffin and stood with heads bowed during a silent vigil on Saturday evening.

The miles-long queue is expected to be closed to new arrivals later Sunday so that everyone in line can file past the coffin before Monday morning, when it will be borne on a gun carriage to Westminster Abbey for the queen’s funeral.

Among the foreign leaders in London was New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who told the BBC she was humbled to represent her nation at the funeral and to witness the national outpouring of grief and respect for the late queen.

“The thing that I will take away from this period is just the beauty of the public’s response, the kindness that you see from members of the public, the patience, the camaraderie, that has been, for me, the most moving tribute of all, has been the public response of the British people,” she said.

People across the U.K. are due to pause Sunday evening for a nationwide minute of silence to remember the queen, who died Sept. 8 at the age of 96 after 70 years on the throne. Monday has been declared a public holiday, and the funeral will be broadcast to a huge television audience and screened to crowds in parks and public spaces across the country.

Thousands of police officers from around the country will be on duty as part of the biggest one-day policing operation in London’s history.

Crowds also gathered Sunday near Windsor Castle, where the queen will be laid to rest at a private family ceremony on Monday evening.

“I think it’s been amazing,” said Anna Pettigrew, a 55-year-old teacher. “It’s been very emotional, and I think it’s been a very fitting tribute to a wonderful queen.”

Camilla, the new queen consort, paid tribute to the queen in a video message, saying the monarch “carved her own role” as a “solitary woman” on a world stage dominated by men.

“I will always remember her smile. That smile is unforgettable,” said Camilla, who is married to King Charles III.

A tide of people continued to stream into Parliament’s Westminster Hall, where the queen’s coffin is lying in state, draped in the Royal Standard and capped with a diamond-studded crown. The number of mourners has grown steadily since the public was first admitted on Wednesday, with a queue that stretches for at least five miles (eight kilometers) along the River Thames and into Southwark Park in the city’s southeast.

Honoring their patience, Charles and William made an unannounced visit Saturday to greet people in the line, shaking hands and thanking mourners in the queue near Lambeth Bridge.

Later, all the queen’s grandchildren stood by her coffin. William and Prince Harry, Charles’ sons, were joined by Princess Anne’s children, Zara Tindall and Peter Philips; Prince Andrew’s daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie; and the two children of Prince Edward — Lady Louise Windsor and James, Viscount Severn.

William stood with his head bowed at the head of the coffin and Harry at the foot. Both princes, who are military veterans, were in uniform. Mourners continued to file past in silence.

“You could see that they were thinking hard about their grandmother, the queen,” said Ian Mockett, a civil engineer from Oxford in southern England. “It was good to see them all together as a set of grandchildren given the things that have happened over the last few years.”

Before the vigil, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie issued a statement praising their “beloved grannie.”

“We, like many, thought you’d be here forever. And we all miss you terribly. You were our matriarch, our guide, our loving hand on our backs leading us through this world. You taught us so much and we will cherish those lessons and memories forever,” the sisters wrote.

The queen’s four children — Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward — held a similar vigil around the coffin on Friday.

The silence in the hall was briefly broken Friday when a man lunged at the coffin. London police said Sunday that a 28-year-old London man, Muhammad Khan, has been charged with behavior intended to “cause alarm, harassment or distress.” He will appear in court on Monday.

The lying-in-state continues until early Monday morning, when the queen’s coffin will be moved on a gun carriage pulled by 142 Royal Navy ratings to nearby Westminster Abbey for the funeral, the finale of 10 days of national mourning for Britain’s longest-reigning monarch.

After the service Monday at the abbey, the late queen’s coffin will be transported through the historic heart of London on the state gun carriage. It will then be taken in a hearse to Windsor, where the queen will be interred alongside her late husband, Prince Philip, who died last year.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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