How could the palace let Kate blame it?

Not since the moon landing have there been so many conspiracies surrounding the authenticity of a photo.

A simple family photo of Kate with her children, intended to quiet rumors about her health and character, has been revealed as a fake, a fraud, a Frankenstein.

It’s the most epic Photoshop fail of the century. It is also the biggest PR blunder for the royals in years.

Hours after its publication, news agencies around the world announced they were removing the photo because it was clearly not authentic – sixteen errors and counting.

And far from quelling rumors about Kate’s health, concerns have only been fueled by what the photo’s inauthenticity might suggest: that she is so ill, she has unedited photo was not an option.

Worst of all, it gave the Montecito Miserables cheerleaders an opening that they exploited in the most unsavory way.

Meghan, don’t you know, that could never happen.

“This is not a mistake Meghan would ever make,” a source close to the Sussexes told Page Six.

Their stenographer Omid Scobie gave his unsolicited opinion on social media.

“The long history of lying and cover-up at the Palace makes it increasingly difficult for the public to believe a word (and now a photo) they share,” he wrote.

Scobie further claimed that regaining the trust of the press and public, damaged by this photoshop failure, would be ‘an almost impossible task’.

The melodrama! As if Harry and Meghan are examples of trust and integrity.

Dear Lord.

Even as Kate suffers, this fierce battle of transatlantic one-upmanship continues.

What made this mess worse was the apology issued on Monday – by Kate!

She fell on her sword and wrote a post that minimized her skills and made her sound like a hesitant, foolish woman instead of the worthy future queen that she is.

“Like many amateur photographers, I occasionally experiment with photo editing,” she wrote.

Let’s unpack that first line, shall we? Kate studied art history. She has been her family’s unofficial resident photographer since her first child was born ten years ago.

It’s safe to assume that Kate understands composition, lighting, color theory and the like. But here she is reduced to calling herself just an ‘amateur’ who ‘experimented’, and a bad one at that.

“I wanted to apologize for any confusion the family photo we shared yesterday caused,” she continued.

Note: ‘we’. She didn’t do this alone. A release like this goes through many layers, through aides and private secretaries, and perhaps even the King.

It seems to me that someone should have – should have advised against releasing a fake image. It also seems to me that this extremely bad idea could only have been implemented by someone who can never be said ‘no’ to.

So: where is Prince William?

Why not He take the blame?

After all, this photo was taken by him.

Even if no one believed he was the one behind that bad photoshop – most of us certainly don’t believe it was Kate, who was too ill to drive or, according to William, even see this year’s BAFTA-nominated films watching – he would have deserved the title of the world. respect for the fact that he stood in front of his wife and took the blows.

Instead he remains silent.

Instead, Kate was dragged outside yesterday, photographed sitting next to her husband in the back of a car, her face turned away from the camera and towards a brick wall.

That act seemed like a challenge to me.

Kate has hardly put a wrong step. She signed up for the job and has never shown anything but good cheer towards her duties.

She stood in front of the media hours after giving birth and looked fantastic.

But she clearly refused to participate in this photo, which was probably designed to magnify the “amateur” photo that has shocked the world.

As she should.

No one believes that Kate alone created this mess. Why should she have to give up more of her privacy, at an obviously vulnerable moment, to right a wrong her husband should never have allowed?

After all, William has a pretty sophisticated understanding of how the media works. It’s ingrained in his destiny, shaped by a mother who constantly manipulated the media.

There was no reason for Kate and William to travel together on Monday. Her car actually drove behind him.

He was on his way to a Commonwealth service at Westminster Abbey and she was going to a private appointment – an appointment that would have been much more private had she not gone with him in that Range Rover.

Meanwhile, royal sources push the insulting, patronizing narrative that poor, misguided Kate just didn’t understand what she was doing. And in addition to being physically ill, Kate is now said to be distraught at having single-handedly caused such a disruption.

“Terrible” was how Kate felt about this, a royal source told the Telegraph. Her intention was only to make the image ‘as good as possible’, but now she believes that honesty is the ‘best policy’ and that she should ‘take personal responsibility’.

It makes Kate sound like a dumbass. And there’s also a hint of misogyny here: the little woman who did her best, but made a mess of it.

Can anyone imagine Charles blaming Camilla in this way?

If William and Kate’s older children don’t see this controversy online, they’re sure to hear about it at school: that their sick mother is to blame.

This is a shame.

Kate is the future of the Crown. She is the Windsors’ most dazzling asset, someone who commands global goodwill.

If the thought was that her popularity meant she could afford to take responsibility – wow. What an ultimate miscalculation.

The photo’s metadata shows that it was saved twice in Adobe Photoshop – highly sophisticated software that an ‘amateur’ like Kate certainly wouldn’t be able to navigate.

The first saved version had a timestamp of 9:54 PM on Friday, March 8.

Does anyone think that sick Kate was really playing with this around ten o’clock at night?

In a rare 2020 interview, Kate opened up about her approach to photography. Spoiler alert: something is wrong with this highly edited family photo.

“One of the great things about photography is that it really captures that moment, so it’s not a backdrop, it’s not a perfect setting,” she said. ‘You don’t tidy up your house, so you have the perfect studio setup. But it really captures those moments that feel real to you.”

Kate has always given us, if not her real self, her best self.

Above all, William should understand how difficult that is.

In her hour of need, it is up to the future king – and not his sick wife – to solve this.

PHIL TAYLOR's final performance at the Circus Tavern – the scene of some of his greatest and most thrilling triumphs – has ended in defeat.

The Power, 63, is the best player to grace the oche and Essex's famous venue in Purfleet is where he won 11 of his record 16 world championships.

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Yet his swan song year in the senior circuit – he will hang up his racing kit in November – started in frustrating fashion against an unknown rival.

Seventeen years after that final with Raymond van Barneveld, which was settled by a sudden death leg, Taylor was humiliated 3-2 by Manfred Bilderl in the first round of the Jennings Bet World Seniors Darts Championship.

The 56-year-old German, who speaks barely a word of English, may be a world champion with soft tips, but he is not exactly part of the arrow aristocracy.

And let's be honest: he's not someone who would have been good enough to tie Taylor's shoes over twenty years ago.

The way this loss happened – he averaged just 68.98 after the first two sets – must have hurt the GOAT big time.

Especially since he had come from two sets down to avoid a whitewash in straight sets to force the fifth-set decider.

The former world number 1 turned up to a hero's reception for his 9pm walk-on and fans chanted: 'There's only one Phil Taylor…'

It was just like old times, minus the smoky haze that was a permanent presence here before the 2007 smoking ban was introduced.

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The crowd was respectable throughout and the noise level was many, many decibels lower than the drunken behavior seen at the PDC stage events.

Still, that was as good as it got, as OAP pitcher Taylor failed to recapture the glory days, when he regularly averaged over 100 and struck fear across the sporting landscape.

The Elton John-style Farewell Tour, which ends in November, has started with a setback, but he hopes to improve his form and averages throughout the year.

He will then play the Jennings Bet WSDT Champion of Champions in Blackpool next month.

Then it's the World Matchplay in York in October, followed by the final, the World Masters in Sunderland, in nine months.

Taylor will not hang up his arrows for good, as he plans to participate in lucrative exhibitions from 2025.

But in terms of competition, he's running out of time to remind everyone how brilliant he used to be.

Being fashionable while adhering to the dress code is not always easy.

One teacher thought she had done the impossible by putting on her school outfit, until a student made a joke at her expense.

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Kim (@klwieds82) shared the incident in a video with her TikTok followers.

She stood in her empty classroom smiling as she confidently showed off her first put-together look for the new school year.

Kim wore a simple black turtleneck and beige pants, her hands shyly in her pockets for a modest fit.

Although she thought she looked great, she quickly learned how honest – and sassy – children can be.

“When you think you've got your back nailed to school and a student actually tells you that…” she said, shrugging her shoulders in disappointment.

“You look like an Animaiac,” she said, pulling out a photo of the cartoon Yakko Warner, who always wears beige pants over his body.

The teacher took the joke to heart and shrugged.

“Nice to see you again too,” she said.

Her viewers laughed at the joke and said the kids would be fine.

“Ayo, they deserved an A+ for knowing the Animaniacs!” said one commenter.

“I'm just glad they knew the reference, to be honest,” said another.

Some disagreed with the children, saying they were missing a crucial part of the outfit.

“You're missing the belt with the gold buckle for a little dazzle,” said one commenter.

One thought she might as well dedicate herself completely to the piece by staging an iconic performance.

“You should do Yakko's geography song,” said one viewer.

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Then there was one. Although probably not for long.

Ron DeSantis throwing in the towel, which was inevitable given his expensive campaign went nowhere, leaves Nikki Haley as the only credible challenger to Donald Trump in his bid to recapture the Republican presidential nomination — and even that stretches the meaning of 'credible' op. '.

It's hard to believe that just a year ago, DeSantis was considered the best Republican candidate to beat Trump. But that was before he gave a masterclass on how not to run a presidential campaign.

From a disastrous, problem-ridden launch last May on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, to throwing tens of millions of dollars (perhaps as much as $150 million) at the Iowa caucuses, only to come in a very poor second place coming after Trump, with numerous failed reboots of his campaign in between, DeSantis never had the potential to be a winner from the start.

What a disappointment for the man who was re-elected governor of Florida in a landslide in November 2022 on a night that was generally bad for Republicans.

A challenger early polls showed was within striking distance of Trump. A favorite of Rupert Murdoch, whose media dubbed him 'DeFuture' in the mogul's frantic search for an alternative to The Donald. A man who, as one of his campaign ads indicated, came to view himself as “chosen by God.”

But it soon became clear that he was not driven by anything like divine inspiration.

As he tried to imprint himself into the national consciousness with the same success he had in the Sunshine State, it soon became clear that he suffered from a rather fatal flaw for someone with presidential ambitions: the more people saw of him, the more people liked him saw, the more people saw him. they liked him less.

He was wooden in debates and campaign speeches, advancing his talking points with all the charm and verve of a malfunctioning robot.

Curmudgeonly in media interviews. Awkward when you have to press the meat with mere mortals. Without humor. Lack of heat. A charisma-free zone without even the slightest trace of Reaganesque optimism. An alleged commander-in-chief whose grasp of foreign policy was so weak described Russia's invasion of Ukraine as merely a “territorial dispute.”

No amount of funding could overcome these handicaps. His campaign had essentially come to a standstill since last summer. It became better known for the fierce battles behind closed doors between its leading strategists than for the progress it made on the ground.

And when DeSantis left Iowa en route to certain defeat in New Hampshire, it was clear his days were numbered.

His well-funded political action committee called itself “Never Back Down.” But on Sunday, DeSantis backed down, withdrawing from the race and throwing whatever political weight he has left (answer: not much) behind Trump, who had long called him “Ron DeSantimonious.”

It doesn't get more humiliating than that.

It's not just his presidential ambitions that went up in flames. That includes his political reputation, which undermines even his lofty status in Florida.

This could be the downfall of his political career – and not just his bid for the presidency.

Of course, he's only 45 and could run for president again in 2028. But for that to turn out differently than this time, he would have to completely reinvent his personality and his approach to campaigning on the national stage.

I've seen no evidence that he's capable of doing that. Even as his 2024 campaign collapsed around him, all he offered was more of the same.

DeSantis – and Haley – are both now in Trump's rearview mirror.

In fact, I fully expect Haley to follow DeSantis' path after losing badly to Trump in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday. According to the latest Boston Globe poll, Trump has a 19-point lead — and with DeSantis out, he could win by even more.

DeSantis only got 6 percent in the Granite State, so there aren't many of his votes to redistribute — but the votes now up for grabs, polling analysis shows, will be split 50:30 in Trump's favor.

The next big contest in the Republican primaries is on February 24 in South Carolina, where Haley was a moderately popular two-term governor but where she is polling even worse than New Hampshire, with Trump holding a 30-point lead.

If it eventually dawns on the billionaire donor class currently bankrolling her campaign that she can't even win her home state, the curtains will be in sight for her.

A heavy defeat in New Hampshire means they will likely pull the plug long before February 24 — and Trump will then emerge as the undisputed Republican candidate, well ahead of his goal of clinching the nomination in early March.

In other words, his coronation is all but guaranteed. His eyes are now firmly on the White House again.

The latest poll in the swing state of Michigan gives him an eight-point lead over President Biden, who actually won the state in 2020 – albeit by only three points.

November is still far away. But as things stand, it's not just the Republican nomination for which Trump now seems unstoppable. Whether he's good or bad, he's also currently the clear favorite to regain the White House.