MMN Editor

Starting Nov. 1, 2026, Morningstar will show updated labels when displaying pillar scores for Morningstar’s Medalist Rating for 529 education savings plans. This is a change in how scores are shown to investors, not in how they are determined. Our analytical framework, pillar weights, and rating thresholds remain unchanged.Morningstar’s Guide to 529 PlansBetter Visibility Into Our Five-Point Pillar Scores Morningstar analysts have assigned People, Process, and Parent Pillar scores on a five-point scale since 2020, and those pillar scores serve as the foundation for each 529 plan’s Medalist Rating. Due to technological constraints, we currently condense those scores into three broad labels: Positive, Neutral, and Negative. As a result, scores of 1 (Low) and 2 (Below Average) both appear as “Negative,” a score of 3 (Average) appears as “Neutral,” and scores of 4 (Above Average) and 5 (High) both appear as “Positive.” Starting in November, we’re updating our scoring displays. Investors and users will now see all five levels reflected in the labels displayed: The updated labels better reflect the underlying assessments that inform our Medalist Ratings.Full Transparency to Price Score Similarly, our products currently display a discrete label (Negative, Neutral, or Positive) for the Price pillar, which is mapped from a score that’s based on how much they differ from the median, also known as a modified z-score. Starting Nov. 1, products will directly display that score as a number between negative 2.5 and 2.5, with no additional mapping to a label. The Price adjustment to the Plan Score remains unchanged: The modified z-score continues to be calculated the same way, and plans with below-median fees still receive a positive score adjustment while plans with above-median fees receive a negative one.What Hasn’t Changed Our assessment framework for 529 education savings plans remains the same. Analysts will continue to evaluate plans using the same criteria and assign forward-looking five-point scores for People, Process, and Parent pillars. The pillar scores will retain the same weights (Process 50%, People 25%, Parent 25%). The thresholds for Gold, Silver, Bronze, Neutral, and Negative Medalist Ratings remain unchanged. You can access the updated methodology document here and the latest 529 savings plan ratings here.

Artificial-intelligence usage by American firms increased to 20.6% in June, and drags caused by the technology in certain sectors have been offset by growth in the construction sector.

Nike Turnaround Falters As UBS Says There’s “No Reason To Buy” Stock

Nike shares fell 3% in premarket trading after the struggling athletic apparel giant warned on its earnings call that revenue declines over the next two quarters will be worse than previously expected, underscoring that there is still no immediate turnaround to halt a multi-year bear market that has driven the stock to decade lows.

“We are not expecting the environment to improve meaningfully over the next six months,” Nike’s outgoing CFO Matt Friend told investors on Tuesday evening.

Customers are “under pressure around the world, and we can particularly see it having a larger impact on sportswear,” Friend added.

Nike now sees sales falling in the low-to-mid single digits, down from an earlier view of a low-single-digit decline. The slowdown is expected over the next six months and is mostly due to slower wholesale shipments in North America, among other factors.

The downbeat commentary offset better-than-expected fourth-quarter sales and profits, which were largely in line with expectations. Management warned that the operating environment became “increasingly challenging” as the quarter progressed, with North America slowing by mid-April.

Our immediate takeaway is that Nike’s reset remains ongoing, and any turnaround plan will likely take much longer than initially anticipated, continuing to pressure the stock.

UBS equity analyst Jay Sole, focused on retail, department stores, specialty softlines, apparel, footwear, and consumer discretionary stocks, was blunt with clients: “We don’t see a reason to buy the stock.”

Sole explained why clients should hold off for now from attempting to bottom-fish the stock, which is currently trading at 2014 levels:

The pivotal Nike question remains “Is all the ‘bad news’ now priced in?” Despite the pullback in Nike’s stock price, we still don’t see a good entry point. Nike’s stock price is still not cheap at ~27x our FY27 EPS estimate, in our view, and this suggests a solid rebound remains priced in. We continue to see a balanced upside/downside skew. The main upside risk is Nike returns to positive sales growth with expanding gross margin faster than expected. Yet the main downside risk is the rebound takes much longer than the market anticipates. Nike’s 4Q report did not cause us to change our thesis much.

Nike’s 4Q report underscores upside and downside sales and margin risks:

1. Nike lowered its CY26 sales guidance, but there were bright spots within the outlook. Nike lowered its CY26 sales growth forecast to -L to -MSD% from -LSD %. We believe the main negative factor is Nike’s fashion business continues to struggle. The issue is Nike’s fashion business remains 50% of its sales mix. Nike may need to take this percentage much lower over time in order to reestablish itself at the world’s best sports brand. If so, it could serve as a major, multiyear drag on Nike’s top line. This is the main downside sales risk. At the same time, Nike’s performance business grew 5% in Q4. Plus, the company sounded like it is in the process of replicating the operational improvements made in categories like running to other sports categories such as basketball, training, outdoor, and tennis. If so, this could lead to upside sales growth surprises over the NTM. This is the main upside risk, in our view.

2. Nike offset its lowered sales expectation with raised margin guidance. Nike boosted its GM% outlook slightly and trimmed its SG&A outlook in order to maintain its CY26 guidance. This was a mild positive surprise to us and Nike is citing its ability to continue to tightly manage costs as one means of restoring its EBIT margin back to 10% over time. However, Nike’s average annual SG&A growth rate over the past 4 years (FY27e included) is just 0%. Our concern is Nike is underinvesting in future growth in order to limit near-term downward EPS revisions. Thus, a main downside margin risk is that Nike will have to ramp up SG&A more than expected to return to sustainable top-line growth.

We maintain our FY27, FY28, and FY29 EPS estimates:

We lower our FY27 sales growth forecast given Nike’s plan to reduce its inventory buys. Plus, we see greater revenue pressure post Q1 as Nike moves past major sporting events like the world cup and laps elevated promotions on its digital channel. At the same time, we raise our operating margin forecast related to annualizing new efficiencies in Nike’s supply chain and technology divisions. Plus we see slightly lower risk Nike’s promotions

Separate analyst commentary (courtsey of Bloomberg):

Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Poonam Goyal

“Nike’s sales recovery is likely to take longer as management tightens buys and sell-in to clear sportswear, Jordan, streetwear and China inventory, even as margin can expand sooner”
Citi analyst (neutral, PT to $45 from $47)

Nike’s sales are looking a little weaker, while margins are a little better.
“After sales slowed in mid-April within 4Q26, June (1QTD) has improved, helped by excitement around global football”
Guggenheim analyst Simeon Siegel (buy, PT $60 from $74)

The bottom line is that “we assume investors will still question whether Nike has ‘ripped the band-aid’ on earnings revisions”
Trim price target on “recognizing ongoing noise and a general reduction in retail multiples”
Jefferies analyst Randal Konik (buy, PT to $75 from $90)

The fourth-quarter report “came in ahead with kernels of progress solidifying in the base business”
“Sportswear/Jordan Streetwear still the overhang, but not getting worse”
RBC Capital analyst Piral Dadhania (sector perform, PT $50)

Revenues remain reliant on wholesale, whilst direct-to- consumer trends remain soft, which is “not likely sustainable mid-term”
“Nike has delivered a mixed 4Q26 quarter (ex US tariff refund) with anticipated lack of underlying revenue momentum offset by more favourable FX translation benefit which flatters absolute gross profit”
According to Bloomberg data, there are 17 “Buy” ratings on the stock, with 23 “Neutral” ratings and 3 “Sell” ratings.

Read The Market Ear note on Nike’s epic demise titled “Go Woke Go Broke: Nike Stopped Obsessing Over Athletes And Started Obsessing Over Activism.”

Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/01/2026 – 08:05

Photo courtesy of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.
For years, Christian communities across Nigeria’s Middle Belt have viewed the Fulani militant attacks on their villages as more than criminal violence. They see them as a religiously motivated campaign to drive Christians from their land, destroy their churches, and erase their presence from the region.
Alongside that conviction has been another persistent belief: that the scale, coordination, and sophistication of the attacks require substantial financing, and that someone powerful, whether a government official, political network, or well-connected patron, is providing it. Court documents, senior military testimony, and a recent federal prosecution are now giving that belief an evidentiary foundation.
On June 22, 2026, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) filed a 12-count charge before the Federal High Court in Abuja against Bello Abdullahi Bodejo, National President of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, the umbrella organization representing Fulani herder interests in Nigeria. The charges allege terrorism financing and money laundering totaling $2.53 million, confirmed by EFCC Head of Media and Publicity Dele Oyewale.
According to the charge sheet, the funds were received in cash from Sa’idu Abubakar, a former Accountant-General of Bauchi State, now in the custody of the Nigerian Police Force, in multiple installments between 2022 and 2024. Bauchi State government records confirm $2.33 million was disbursed to Bodejo in four tranches in 2023 and 2024 alone. None of the transactions passed through a financial institution as required by Nigerian law.
Bodejo is linked in multiple reports to Bauchi State Governor Bala Mohammed, who oversaw the administration under which the disbursements were made. Mohammed defected from the Peoples Democratic Party to the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) in May 2026 and remains in office.
The EFCC is separately prosecuting Bauchi State Commissioner for Finance Yakubu Adamu and three civil servants on ten counts of terrorism financing and money laundering in connection with the same disbursements, arraigned before the Federal High Court on December 31, 2025. The current case is not Bodejo’s first encounter with federal authorities. In 2024, he spent approximately six months in detention and briefly faced terrorism charges before the Attorney-General of the Federation withdrew the case without explanation. The prosecution now before the Federal High Court is the second and more formally documented legal action against him.
Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore and its affiliated body, the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), have long functioned as the public face of Fulani herder interests in Nigeria. Both organizations have consistently denied involvement in violence while simultaneously issuing statements that Christian communities, Nigerian civil society, and U.S. lawmakers have characterized as threatening. A 2025 U.S. House resolution named both organizations and called for them to be designated as Entities of Particular Concern.
Nina Shea of the Hudson Institute, testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa in March 2025, documented that both organizations began supplying Fulani herders with AK-47s and other weapons as far back as the 1980s. Christian communities across the Middle Belt and southern Kaduna have long maintained that the militants attacking their villages operate with a level of organization, armament, and coordination that no self-financing criminal network could sustain.
The Bodejo case is not the only active prosecution linking Miyetti Allah’s network to organized violence. In February 2026, nine Fulani herdsmen went on trial at the Federal High Court in Abuja on 57 counts of terrorism, including financing, recruiting, and direct participation in the June 2025 Benue massacre that killed more than 270 Christians. Each of the accused was reportedly linked to MACBAN. The leader of the group, Ardo Lawal Mohammed Dono, held a MACBAN leadership position in Nasarawa State. Frank Utoo, a U.S.-based Nigerian lawyer who met Dono twice as part of official Benue State peace delegations in 2020 and 2021, identified him as the mastermind of killings in Benue State.
A Nigerian Police Force Intelligence Response Team officer testified that several of the accused organized meetings at Dono’s house in Nasarawa State to raise funds and recruit armed fighters. One defendant, Haruna Abdullahi, confirmed in court that he attended those meetings.
The weapons in use reinforce that belief. Community leaders in Riyom Local Government Area, Plateau State, report that militants have deployed drones during attacks on villages. On June 10, 2026, gunmen killed two volunteer security watchmen in the Tahoss community, Riyom LGA, while they were on routine night patrol. Security sources recovered 25 empty 7.62mm special shell casings at the scene. This ammunition is specifically associated with the AK-47 assault rifle, the weapon survivors most frequently identify as being used by Fulani extremists during raids on Christian villages.
The victims, Davou Dalyop Patu, 48, and Dalyop Zaram, 38, were active members of a local vigilante group that had organized to protect the village after government security forces had failed to do so. Their deaths deepened the fear already widespread in the region: that communities which organize to defend themselves become targets.
That fear has been articulated publicly by some of Nigeria’s most credible voices. On March 24, 2018, retired Lieutenant General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma, former Chief of Army Staff (1975–1979) and former Minister of Defence (1999–2003), addressed the convocation ceremony of Taraba State University in Jalingo. His remarks were unambiguous. “The armed forces are not neutral,” he said. “They collude with the armed bandits that kill people, kill Nigerians. They facilitate their movement, they cover them. If you are depending on the armed forces to stop the killings, you will all die one by one.” The Nigerian Army convened a panel to investigate the statements. No findings were published.
Two years later, on August 11, 2020, Dr. Obadiah Mailafia, former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Oxford-educated development economist, and 2019 presidential candidate from southern Kaduna, appeared on Nigeria Info’s Morning Crossfire program in Abuja. He stated that two repentant terrorists had informed him that a serving northern governor was the commander of Boko Haram in Nigeria, and that during the COVID-19 lockdown, insurgents had moved arms and ammunition across the country.
He characterized the attacks on Christian farming communities as a continuation of jihad and described those framing the violence as farmer-herder resource conflict as “accessories to genocide.” The Department of State Services interrogated Mailafia three times at its Jos office following the broadcast, in a campaign Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka described as ongoing national security persecution. Mailafia died of COVID-19 on September 19, 2021.
The statements of Danjuma and Mailafia were made before the EFCC had produced a single court document linking Fulani militant networks to state government funds. The Bodejo prosecution now provides the first judicial framework for what both men described. The charge sheet names a sitting state government’s accountant general as the source of millions of dollars in cash, paid outside the banking system, to the head of an organization the U.S. Congress has linked to the financing of armed attacks on Christian communities.
The prosecutions of Bodejo and Dono are unfolding alongside a separate but simultaneous crackdown on a distinct terror-financing network. On June 18, 2026, Nigeria’s Sanctions Committee published an updated sanctions list naming six individuals and three bureaux de change for financing ISWAP. Days later, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) independently designated Lagos-based forex operator Muktar Muhammad Adamu and three companies he controlled for moving funds on behalf of ISWAP. The Central Bank of Nigeria followed on June 24 with a directive to all financial institutions to freeze the accounts of those listed. Nigeria’s Sanctions Committee described the parallel U.S. and Nigerian actions as the product of extensive intelligence gathering and inter-agency financial investigations. The two tracks, the Miyetti Allah prosecutions and the ISWAP finance network, involve separate defendants and separate allegations. Together, however, they represent the most concentrated application of terrorism-financing laws against Nigerian networks in years.
The EFCC charges are allegations. Bodejo has not entered a plea, and no arraignment date has been set. He is presumed innocent unless and until a competent court finds otherwise. However, the documents before the Federal High Court in Abuja represent the strongest evidence to date supporting what many Christians in the Middle Belt have long believed: that government money, militant networks, and organized violence are connected.

The post Court Documents Link Nigerian State Funds to Fulani Militant Networks appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Micron Technology (MU) became one of the world’s most valuable companies in 2026, but not too long ago, it was a four-person consulting firm operating out of the basement of a dental office in Boise, Idaho. Now, it has millions of owners, including company executives, institutional investors like hedge funds, and individual investors who own shares either directly or through ETFs. Over the past four decades, the semiconductor manufacturer has pioneered major innovations in DRAM system memory, high-density storage, and high-bandwidth memory for large-scale AI models.Micron eventually outgrew its basement headquarters, building its first fabrication plant in Idaho before expanding into Texas, New York, and, later, around the world.The company’s latest earnings report underscored sizzling demand for the memory powering AI infrastructure — particularly High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) — helping propel Micron’s shares nearly 1,000% between June 2025 and June 2026.But its success hasn’t always been a smooth ride. The semiconductor industry has been one of Wall Street’s most volatile sectors, and Micron’s shareholders have weathered both extreme highs and crushing lows. Yet many of its biggest investors have remained firmly committed.Here’s a look at Micron’s largest institutional owners as well as which executives have the biggest ownership stakes.Who owns Micron Technology?Micron is a publicly traded company listed on the Nasdaq exchange. It is owned by large institutional investors, such as hedge funds, as well as company executives and retail investors.  As of June 2026, there were 1.1 billion shares outstanding, according to Fidelity Investments.Related: Does Micron pay dividends? Its yield and payouts explainedWho are Micron Technology’s biggest investors?The memory chip giant is 80% owned by institutional investors, with its three biggest shareholders at the end of 2025 being Vanguard Group (with a 9.45% stake), BlackRock (8.93%), and Capital World Investors (5.17%), according to Micron’s proxy statement.The biggest owners of Micron stockInvestorShares (in millions)% stakeVanguard Group106.619.45%BlackRock100.78.93%Capital World Investors58.255.17%Source: Micron TechnologyWho are Micron’s biggest executive shareholders?Executives and directors, including CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, collectively own 2.6 million shares — less than a 1% stake altogether.Executive or DirectorRole at MicronShares ownedSanjay MehrotraChief Executive Officer, Chairman, President1,084,078Manish BhatiaExecutive Vice President, Global Operations350,109Sumit SadanaExecutive Vice President, Chief Business Officer277,521Mark J. MurphyChief Financial Officer219,693Scott J. DeBoerExecutive Vice President, Chief Technology and Product Officer154,145Richard M. BeyerDirector97,408T. Mark LiuDirector25,910 sharesSteven J. GomoDirector24,139MaryAnn WrightDirector23,333Mary Pat McCarthyDirector21,523Lynn A. DugleLead Independent Director19,028Linnie M. HaynesworthDirector13,632Robert H. SwanDirector4,444A. Christine SimonsDirector3,833Source: Micron TechnologyShare count based on all current directors and executive officers as a group (14 persons) as of Micron’s 2025 proxy statement, except for T. Mark Liu, who purchased 23,200 additional shares since the proxy statement was released.Mehrotra has been Micron’s President and CEO since 2017. Prior to that, he was the CEO at SanDisk. Mehrotra owns 1,084,078 shares and, according to Forbes, has a 2026 net worth of $1.2 billion.Manish Bhatia, Micron’s second-largest executive shareholder, is the company’s executive vice president of global operations. He owns a total of 350,109 shares.Micron’s third-largest executive shareholder is Sumit Sadana, the company’s chief business officer. He owns  277,521 shares.Related: How many employees does Micron have in 2026? Its workforce, locations, and layoffs explainedWho originally owned Micron?Design engineers Ward Parkinson, Dennis Wilson, and Doug Pitman teamed up with Ward’s twin brother, Joe, who was an attorney, to found Micron Technology in 1978.The men had one goal: to produce more efficient, denser, and faster Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) chips.By 1981, Micron’s founders had their design, but they needed the capital to scale their manufacturing. After securing $300,000 in investments from a few local businessmen, they reached out to J.R. Simplot, a colorful character and local billionaire who made his fortune supplying McDonald’s with its frozen french fries.Simplot knew nothing about computers, but he did understand business, and after hearing their story, he became convinced that Micron could produce the highest-quality chips at the lowest possible cost. He invested $1 million into the company for a 40% stake, saying, “We’re going to make some millionaires out here in the sagebrush.”More on tech company ownership: Who owns IBM? Top insiders & institutional shareholdersWho owns Nvidia? Top insiders & institutional investorsWho owns Salesforce in 2026? A look at its largest shareholders & leadership stakeBy 1981, Micron’s 64K DRAM chip was built into the Commodore 64 home computer. IBM and Apple would soon follow, and within ten years, Simplot’s investment would be worth $4 billion.However, Simplot sold off the bulk of his holdings throughout the 90s to fund his agribusiness and later died at age 99 in 2008. Today, his family no longer owns any Micron shares.Micron’s stock performanceMicron went public on June 1, 1984, at $13 per share. According to Yahoo! Finance, a $1,000 investment during the company’s IPO would have been worth $414,500 as of April 2026.Related: Micron Technology’s stock buybacks explained

Last month, Guthrie’s daughter and NBC anchor Savannah Guthrie delivered an emotional plea to viewers seeking information about her disappearance.

Some forms of retail work better in a brick-and-mortar store than they do online.Clothing and footwear, for example, benefits from the ability to try the items on. Even people who wear the same size across multiple brands sometime put on an outfit, a pair of sneakers, or some fancy shoes only to find that they don’t fit right.The internet shines, however, on items that don’t need to be held, touched, or tried on. That has made some retailers more vulnerable than others. Office supply chains, which includes Office Depot and Staples, have been in a slow, steady decline.”Office supply stores as a sector employ some 60,000 people and bring in $10.3 billion in revenue in the U.S., which is projected to decline roughly 2% a year through 2026, according to research firm IBISWorld.That has led to Office Depot closing more than half its stores since 2013, a process that has continued with the chain’s most recent shutdowns.Office Depot has been in a steady declineOffice Depot merged with Office Max in 2013, with the combined chain operating about 1,900 U.S. stores following the merger, according to the Dallas Morning News.At the time of the deal, the two companies said they planned to close 400 stores. The industry was already in decline, according to FOX Business.”Office supply stores are fighting a battle for relevance, with shoppers increasingly buying their paper, toner and technology online from Amazon.com Inc, drugstores or mass merchants. Analysts covering office supply stores have long called for consolidation in what they see as a cluttered sector whose sales crumbled during the last recession,” FOX reported.The company, which is no longer public, reported in a an SEC filing that it had 822 locations as of Nov. 5, 2025.It has continued to shed locations since then, but no longer provides a store count since it does not have to report results as a private company.

Office Depot continues to slowly shrink.Shutterstock

These Office Depot locations have closed since Nov. 2025High Point, NC: Office Depot closed its longtime store at the Peters Plaza IV shopping center at 274 Eastchester Drive on Dec. 20., according to the High Point Enterprise.Fresno, CA: The Office Depot on Divisadero Street shut down Feb. 21 after more than 30 years in business, with employees saying the property owner declined to renew the lease, reported CBS47.Ballard (Seattle), WA: The OfficeMax in Ballard closed April 11, 2026 with the building having been purchased by AutoZone for $7.8 million in late 2025, according to My Ballard.Porterville, CA: The OfficeMax at 1260 W. Henderson Ave., the city’s only major office supply store, is closing, part of a pickup in OfficeMax closures that accelerated in 2025, reported Recorder Online.Merriam, KS: The OfficeMax at Merriam Town Center near Johnson Drive and Antioch Road is closing, with liquidation sales already underway after more than a decade at that location, according to Johnson County Post.The following locations appear to be closed based social media reports, which TheStreet confirmed by using the chain’s store locator tool and seeing that they are no longer listed.Pensacola, FL: The Office Depot at 4337 W. Fairfield Dr. closed in 2026.Albuquerque, NM : The former OfficeMax at 40 Hotel Circle NE closed in 2026.Eugene, OR: The Office Depot at 2859 Chad Dr. is set to close in 2026.Meridian, MS: The Office Depot at 110 15th Place South closed in 2026, per community tracking data; no local news coverage identified. Office Depot continues to close stores.”The retailer is shuttering stores in Grapevine and in Irving, according to signage at the shops on Tuesday [June 30[. It’s not clear when the sites will close. Both had window displays saying they would be open on Independence Day,” the Dallas Morning News reported.Amazon has taken market shareOffice supplies like printer paper, pens, notepads, and more are commodities that people can buy without making a dedicated trip.“Even supermarkets have an aisle for office supplies,” IBISWorld Lead Analyst Brigette Thomas told Retail Dive. “But I think the biggest is definitely Amazon.”Amazon has taken office supply sales for much the same reason Walmart and Target took market share from Toys “R” Us years ago. Consumers no longer make a dedicated trip for many commodity purchases. Instead, they buy office supplies while they’re already shopping elsewhere or simply add them to an online order.”Amazon became the largest retailer in the United States in terms of gross merchandise value sometime in 2025, overtaking Walmart, Seeking Alpha reported Thursday (June 25), citing a report by J.P. Morgan.IBISWorld data shows that the decline in the office supplies space has been steady.”The firm noted that office supplies stores as an industry have suffered ‘consistent revenue declines’ every year going back to 2005, due both to competition and the digitization of work itself. The industry declined by an average annual rate of 6.7% since 2016, according to the data.In order for the chain to survive, RTM Nexus CEO Dominick Miserandino believes that a major change is needed.”In most cases, there’s no reason to visit these stores just to buy office supplies,” he told TheStreet. “One of the pivots I’ve been seeing recently though is the office supply stores becoming more in person, event, conference places where you could print your signs and other deliverables.”Related: Amazon challenges Costco with July 4 gas savings deal

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s trip to the United Kingdom is already marred by drama after reports circulated that the visit was canceled due to security concerns.The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are expected to return to Britain this month, marking the first return to the UK in four years for Princess Lilibet and Prince Archie.Issues surrounding official police protection for the Sussexes may damper their trek across the pond as Prince Harry fights for accommodations on a royal estate to best protect his family.While the Duke and Duchess stepped away from senior royal responsibilities in 2020, royal expert Kate Nicholl told Fox News Digital that there’s a “real sense of frustration” from within the palace as the trip stays in limbo.PRINCE HARRY’S UK PLANS COULD SEND POWERFUL MESSAGE TO KING CHARLES AND PRINCE WILLIAM: EXPERTS”Harry knows that he doesn’t have automatic right to taxpayer-funded police protection when he’s over here in the UK,” Nicholl said. “Now, this trip has been several months in the planning. The king was made aware of it.”The king was very happy to put Harry and Meghan and the children up in a royal residence where, by the way, they would have had full taxpayer police protection round the clock while they were a royal residence … Where they don’t get that taxpayer protection is if they’re traveling around the country and Harry doing his Invictus Games.WATCH HERE: KING CHARLES WENT ‘ABOVE AND BEYOND’ FOR PRINCE HARRY: EXPERT’She added, “Now, Harry is a very wealthy man in his own right. He chose to step down from the royal family. He’s not a working member of the royal family.”PRINCE HARRY DEALT MAJOR BLOW AS UK COURT DENIES SECURITY APPEALNicholl, co-host of The Royals Uncensored podcast, said that the palace was “really going above and beyond” to accommodate the Sussexes.The Duke and Duchess were reportedly told that an official review over their request for security was scheduled for March, only to learn that the assessment was never conducted by the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (RAVEC), according to People magazine.In December, Prince Harry wrote privately to the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, requesting a full security risk assessment to reassess threat levels for the first time since 2020, according to The Guardian.MEGHAN MARKLE STANDS BY PRINCE HARRY AFTER SECURITY APPEAL LOSS, SHOWS SUBTLE SUPPORT WITH TENDER FAMILY PHOTOLast year, Prince Harry made a rare appearance at a two-day hearing for his appeal challenging the U.K. government’s decision to remove his security.In court, Harry’s lawyers said the Duke and Duchess of Sussex “felt forced to step back from the role of full-time official working members of the royal family as they were considered they were not being protected by the institution.” Harry had “wished to continue their duties in support of the late queen as privately funded members of the royal family.”In May 2025, the British royal lost his appeal. The Court of Appeal ruled unanimously that a committee had not treated the Duke of Sussex unfairly when it decided to review his protection on a case-by-case basis each time he visits his home country.MEGHAN MARKLE HAS ONE CONDITION FOR RETURNING TO THE UK WITH PRINCE HARRY: EXPERTSArchewell confirmed earlier this week that Prince Harry’s UK visit includes “both public and private engagements across the country,” before noting that safe accommodations are only “one element” of an effective protection plan because “risk follows the person, not the place.””The issue has never been accommodation,” Archewell told Fox News Digital. “The issue is whether appropriate and proportionate protective security is being provided throughout the entirety of the visit.CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER”The independent Risk Management Board that RAVEC itself decided was necessary last November has still not taken place. It is therefore difficult to understand how the proportionality of the current arrangements can credibly be maintained without that independent assessment.”PRINCE WILLIAM’S DOOR IS ‘BOLTED SHUT’ AS PRINCE HARRY PLANS UK RETURN WITH MEGHAN MARKLE, CHILDREN: EXPERTArchewell added, “The Duke continues to explore every available option to enable the visit to proceed safely and to give his children the opportunity to enjoy the UK.”Nicholl noted that there was “a genuine sense of delight” at the palace surrounding Prince Harry’s return to the UK with his children.LIKE WHAT YOU’RE READING? CLICK HERE FOR MORE ENTERTAINMENT NEWS”You’ve got to remember that the king is getting older,” she said. “He’s living with cancer. He hasn’t seen his grandchildren since the late Queens Platinum Jubilee in 2022.”In 2020, Harry and Markle — who currently reside in California — made their royal exit, citing the unbearable intrusions of the British press and lack of support from the palace.On Sept. 10, Buckingham Palace confirmed that Harry spent time with the king, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2024, at Clarence House. It was the first time they had met in more than a year.”Putting aside his public position and his public role, he’s just a grandfather who understandably wants to get to know his grandchildren,” Nicholl said.

Archaeologists who were excavating an historic Connecticut town green have uncovered the well-preserved remains of an 18th-century bake house — an unusual remnant of the Revolutionary War.The structure, used to bake bread for French troops supporting the American Revolution, was found on the Lebanon Town Green in Lebanon, Connecticut.Archaeologists digging in the New London County town uncovered the bake house earlier in June.SECRETS OF REVOLUTIONARY WAR BATTLEFIELDS EMERGE 250 YEARS AFTER AMERICA’S FOUNDINGPictures from the excavation show the exposed bake house foundation, as well as various small artifacts.Relatively few artifacts were found at the site, said Sarah P. Sportman, Connecticut state archaeologist — but one discovery in particular stood out.Sportman told Fox News Digital that — on the last day of the excavation — archaeologists found a burned gunflint.”Gunflints were chipped pieces of stone used in flintlock firearms, like the ones used during the Revolutionary War,” she said. “The stone is used to create the spark that ignites the powder and fires the weapon.”VETERAN-LED DIG OF REVOLUTIONARY WAR BATTLEFIELD SEEKS TO SHED LIGHT ON HISTORY, EMPOWER DISABLED VETSMany of the excavation’s other finds were more routine and reflected different periods of the site’s history.”In the top layers of [soil], we found some ceramic and glass fragments that date to the late 19th century,” she said, which suggested general landscaping work.”As we got a little deeper, we found some older [pieces] … [plus] late 18th century ceramic fragments, a few pieces of animal bone, clay smoking pipe fragments and older bottle glass.”She said that “overall, though, the number of artifacts was quite low.”CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR LIFESTYLE NEWSLETTERSportman said historians had long believed a French bake oven stood on the town green, with the suspected location marked by a commemorative plaque.While an amateur excavation at the site in 1896 reportedly uncovered masonry and bricks, there were no maps, photographs or preserved artifacts documenting the dig, making this the first modern archaeological excavation of the bake house.”As far as anyone knew, that 1896 exploration was the only excavation ever carried out at the site and our work bears that out,” she said.”We were unsure if the 1890s dig might have damaged the foundation, but it appears largely intact and filled in with a great deal of stone rubble.”CLICK HERE FOR MORE LIFESTYLE STORIESThe structure was apparently meant to be “semi-permanent,” Sportman added, as the encampment in the area lasted several months.”The foundation is not very robust and doesn’t exhibit tightly built stonework,” she said.”However, it is certainly more permanent than the earth ovens that troops on the move used for a couple of days at a time … It looks as though it used stone as a base and brick for much of the actual oven portion.”The oven’s discovery doesn’t mean the investigation is over. Sportman said researchers are still working to identify the structure’s style and better understand the surrounding site.”A ground-penetrating radar survey carried out prior to the dig indicates that the stone and brick structure we excavated was part of a possible complex of structures in this part of the green,” she said.”We hope that additional testing in the fall will clarify some of those features and help us better understand the site.”Sportman emphasized that the bake house excavation is just part of a broader archaeological and historical project in Lebanon as the nation marks its 250th anniversary.Experts have identified “numerous sites related to 18th-century militia training and the possible location of the French hospital, demonstrating the scale of Revolutionary War activities in Lebanon,” she said.TEST YOURSELF WITH OUR LATEST LIFESTYLE QUIZ”The project is also important because the Lebanon encampment was part of the route of French troops under General Rochambeau who came to help the American colonists overthrow British rule,” Sportman added.”It is an important reminder that the American victory required significant help from our French allies — and such partnerships have always made us stronger.”

Pro wrestler Vinnie Massaro is a relative unknown to those who primarily dedicate their viewing experiences to what comes on their televisions and streaming services a few times a week.Massaro has been in the ring for nearly three decades starting in Hayward, California, and making it to the top promotions Japan has to offer. He’s been a mainstay on the independents and is helping to train and wrestle those on the come up in West Coast Pro, Pandemonium Pro Wrestling and elsewhere.While he understands that the dream of reaching WWE or All Elite Wrestling (AEW) may be dashed, he told Fox News Digital he’s fallen in love with helping the younger generation grow as professional wrestlers.COMPLETE PRO WRESTLING COVERAGE ON FOX NEWS DIGITAL”Honestly, the dream is not WWE, the dream is not AEW. Those dreams have kind of gone. I realize that I’m not young,” he said. “I’ve reached that stage and that age where nobody is going to hire me as a professional wrestler. But there are other things like training. I love teaching young people how to wrestle. I love helping out in the back. I love doing agenting and that kind of stuff. To me, that’s a better outcome for me.”Ten years from now, people may be like, ‘Oh you know Vinnie Massaro, he used to be a wrestler.’ You’d be like, ‘Oh I kinda saw him but he’s a good trainer. He knows how to teach people, he’s a good agent and he knows how to do that stuff.’ So, I think, eventually, that’s what’s going to end up being my calling card. Even if it’s just being here at West Coast Pro, teaching the students at West Coast Pro and being a professional wrestler in the independent circuit, I’ll be happy.”Massaro said the dream, in the first place, was never to get to WWE or World Championship Wrestling (WCW). He wanted to be on Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) as the hardcore promotion was becoming popular in the Northeast. But that goal went sideways when WWE bought out ECW.As he started training, Massaro turned his attention to Japan and performing at the famed Korakuen Hall.”But after I started training, the main thing I wanted to do was wrestle in Japan,” he said. “My favorite wrestler was (Mitsuharu) Misawa and I was like, I want to meet Misawa, hopefully, one day, I want to wrestle Misawa and I’d like to wrestle for All Japan Pro Wrestling and then when he started (Pro Wrestling) Noah, when it was at Korakuen Hall, I wrestled for Noah. And I got to wrestle Misawa. I’ve wrestled for All Japan Pro Wrestling and I’ve wrestled for Pro Wrestling Noah at Korakuen Hall. I tagged with his former tag team partner – (Yoshinari Ogawa).CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM”So to me, yeah, ‘What about your WrestleMania moment?’ I don’t even care about the WrestleMania moment. Being at Korakuen Hall, wrestling for Pro Wrestling Noah, being on my first Japanese tour, my first Japanese wrestling match and looking down at the mat and it’s ‘All Japan Pro Wrestling,’ the logo that I’ve seen so many times at Korakuen Hall, those are my highlights. Getting a chance to wrestle at Arena Mexico, that’s my highlight. Getting a chance to wrestle at the ECW Arena, that was a big one for me because I grew up watching ECW.”I loved ECW, it’s the reason why I started wrestling. I stopped watching wrestling but I got back into it because I started watching ECW. Now, honestly, I think, the fact that I have students that I have trained from day one, literally, they’re like, ‘I’ve never done anything. I’m here, please teach me how to wrestle, and the fact that those students after I’ve trained them and taught them everything from their very first bump and now they’re wrestling for Korakuen Hall, like Miko Alana. She came with me, she came to the school and was like, ‘I’ve never done any of this before in my life,’ and I taught her how to roll, I taught her how to bump, I taught her how to do moves and she was just on the Monday Magic pay-per-view at Korakuen Hall that … People are like, ‘Oh, Vinnie, you never made it,’ I’m like, that’s bulls—. To me, that’s making it.”Massaro admitted that his skills in the ring are limited to hitting hard and showing his strength in the ring. A Spanish Fly off the top rope was probably never going to happen.He said he could have gone down two paths. He said he could have been Ole Anderson, who was “set in his ways,” or he could have been Terry Funk, who adapted to different styles of wrestling and performed all over the world.”To me, I’d rather be a Terry Funk,” he told Fox News Digital. “I’ve gone to Japan and trained with them, with the Joshis I went to Marvelous Pro and went to train with Takumi (Iroha), I went to Lucha Libre and trained with Lady Apache. So to me, you could just do one thing and keep doing it and if you fail that’s on you, but I tried a lot of different things. It’s not lucky if you just keep going.”Soon, Massaro will get to tag with Japanese wrestling star Shigeo Okumura as they go up against a team led by Lucha Libre legend Blue Panther.Massaro, Okumura and Andrew Cass will take on Blue Panther, Jiah Jewel and Seabass Finn in a six-man tag team match at Pandemonium Pro’s End of Summer Event on Sept. 5 in Phoenix, Arizona.”I’m very excited because I grew up watching a lot of the AAA and Lucha Libre and CMLL and Blue Panther one of the few ones that you recognize and you always saw his match,” he told Fox News Digital. “My first time watching Lucha Libre was Worlds Collide, of course, he was there and he played a big part … Getting a chance to wrestle against Blue Panther, I don’t have too many bucket lists anymore of wrestlers,”I don’t have a list, but Blue Panther is definitely on that list. They have me tagging with Okumura, somebody who’s been doing this for so long. He’s basically like the guy that helped the guys from Japan be in CMLL. … It’s going to be cool to tag with Okumura and awesome on the other side, Blue Panther. But also on a grand aspect, I’d like to say I’m very proud I’m a big part of Pandemonium Pro Wrestling.”