Harry and Meghan Appreciation Thread
- Thread starter djuna1
- Start date
TPF may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, and others
The Human First Coalition
was 1 of 7 organisations that Harry & Meghan supported with donations for their December holiday card which included a special focus on helping families transitioning out of Afghanistan. Archewell Foundation Exec Director James Holt will accept the award on their behalf.
was 1 of 7 organisations that Harry & Meghan supported with donations for their December holiday card which included a special focus on helping families transitioning out of Afghanistan. Archewell Foundation Exec Director James Holt will accept the award on their behalf.
The first episode of Meghan's “Archetypes” Podcast has been released. It features Serena Williams and Dr. Laura Kray in an episode called “The Misconception of Ambition”
Last edited:
This animal rights lawyer helped Meghan, Prince Harry adopt beagle rescued from Virginia plant
Shannon Keith, who runs the Beagle Freedom Project in the Valley Village neighborhood of Los Angeles, has received 25 of 4,000 beagles rescued from the Envigo breeding and research plant in Virginia, which was closed by federal officials due to overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)
BY NOAH GOLDBERG
In less than two months, Mamma Mia the beagle went from rags to royalty.
Her changed life began in July when federal authorities rescued her — along with 4,000 other beagles — from overcrowded and unsanitary conditions at the Envigo breeding and research plant in Virginia.
Her new home is a sprawling estate in Montecito, where the 7-year-old dog will roam around a lush 7-acre property.
Her new owners? The Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
“The duchess called me personally,” said Shannon Keith, an animal rights attorney who runs the Beagle Freedom Project out of the low-slung Valley Village house where she used to live. But Keith said that at first, she didn’t realize who the “VIP Donor” interested in a beagle adoption was.
“She calls on my cell with no Caller ID and says, ‘Hey Shannon, this is Meghan,’” said Keith, whose nonprofit organization rescues beagles and other dogs as well as cats, pigs, horses, rabbits, goats and sheep, most of which were used in laboratory testing. “We talked for 30 minutes, and I thought, ‘Is this Megan Fox?’”
But it was Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, and her husband, Prince Harry, who made an after-hours visit to the unassuming San Fernando Valley house on Hartsook Street this month.
The royal couple’s spokeswoman confirmed the visit to The Times; neither commented on the adoption. It was a no-photos affair, with two security guards joining Meghan and Harry in their quest for a furry family member.
They played in the backyard with Mia, who had been transported with eight of her newborn puppies from Maryland, where the dogs had been taken after the Virginia rescue, to Valley Village. But they did not want a puppy.
“The duchess is holding Mia and was like, ‘We’re adopting her,’” Keith said. “She was like ‘No, we don’t want a Christmas puppy. … We want ones we can help who are older.’”
Meghan had a rescue beagle for many years, and when she saw the story about Envigo’s shutdown, she wanted to get involved, her spokeswoman told The Times. She knew puppies usually are easier to find homes for and wanted to help one of the older, more vulnerable canines.
Mia’s storybook ending followed a life at the Envigo plant described by the Department of Justice as a house of horrors. In a lawsuit filed in federal court against the company in May, authorities say beagles were euthanized or left for dead by a meager staff that routinely violated the Animal Welfare Act.
Investigators visiting the facility on numerous occasions in 2021 and 2022 found nightmarish conditions, including beagles with severe and untreated medical issues, insufficient food and housed in filthy conditions. The dogs were sometimes being fed moldy food, and on two occasions, inspectors found live maggots in their food, prosecutors said.
Some animals had been euthanized without first receiving anesthesia, and hundreds were found dead at the facility, according to inspectors. In addition to the euthanized dogs, investigators discovered that 300 canines died at the plant over a seven-month period from “unknown causes.”
Envigo, the second-largest producer of dogs for medical research, breeds roughly 25% of the beagles used in medical and drug research in the U.S. The company, purchased in November 2021 by Inotiv — an animal testing firm that also has come under scrutiny — has not denied allegations of noncompliance with the Animal Welfare Act.
“There is actually very little that should remain in dispute in this case,” lawyers for Envigo said in court papers, adding that officials spent millions of dollars in the last year working to improve the facility. Envigo’s parent company, Inotiv, said it installed 1,200 new aluminum doors, upgraded and closed in flooring gaps, and installed cooling towers in the buildings.
But Keith said that for all the upgrades to the facility, the beagles were still being abused.
“Basically, it’s a breeding prison,” she said of the Virginia plant. “Not only were the issues not corrected after inspectors went, but they were getting worse.”
After the lawsuit was filed, Envigo agreed to release 4,000 beagles from the plant and shut down operations. The federal government and the company agreed to transfer the dogs to the Humane Society of the United States.
The beagles are being moved to shelters or groups such as the Beagle Freedom Project, which places the dogs in foster homes for rehabilitation before finding their forever homes.
Hundreds of beagles have made their way to Southern California.
Priceless Pets, which has been working with Envigo and the Humane Society, has taken in nearly 1,000 beagles from the Virginia plant.
Ashlee Sprague, who runs the Chino Hills no-kill shelter, said she had been to the Envigo facility and said she’s seen worse treatment of dogs at shelters in California.
Although she was not authorized to give details about the out-of-state plant, she said it was no way for the beagles to live.
She also said the rescued beagles represent only a fraction of all dogs that need adopting.
“The beagle mission is like a tiny little drop in the bucket of our organization,” she said. “We’re in this for the animals, and being able to save those dogs from being euthanized is truly remarkable.
“But I’m just so thankful for the attention because through all this ... we’ve been able to get so many other dogs adopted, and that’s remarkable,” Sprague said.
The Beagle Freedom Project has taken in 25 of the rescued beagles. The puppies yipped and bit at one another, played with toys and doused their feet in a water bowl in the backyard of Keith’s home Monday as a few foster parents milled about.
Mia’s 7-week-old puppies scrambled around the yard and between the legs of Keith’s massive but mindful Great Dane, Maya. The eight pups were apparently unaware their mother had recently been crowned Dog Duchess of Montecito.
Five older puppies joined the mix in the yard. They’d been trucked from Cumberland, Va., to the Humane Society’s Atlanta outpost, where Beagle Freedom Project transporter Malina Shirley scooped them up and drove them to Los Angeles.
The older puppies had Envigo’s green, six-letter serial numbers tattooed on the insides of their ears. The youngest pups weren’t marked because they were born too close to the plant’s shutdown, Keith said.
With about 1,000 people on the waitlist to adopt the beagles, Keith expects her nonprofit should have no trouble finding homes for the Virginia rescues.
But she is focused on finding the perfect home for each one, a special match between owner and dog.
As the Duke and Duchess prepared to leave the Valley Village house with the newest, four-legged member of the House of Windsor, Harry paused, Keith said.
“He’s just like, ‘Well, we can’t leave yet because there’s something in that back house she needs. Does she have a favorite toy or something?’” Keith said.
The royals and their entourage made their way back and found a box filled with toys. They flipped it over, and Mia grabbed a fox toy she had played with during her cross-country trip from Maryland after leaving Envigo.
And with that, the Duke, the Duchess and their dog left the Valley. “OK, now we can go home,” Harry said.
latimes.com
Meghan Markle’s ‘Archetypes’ Podcast Unseats Joe Rogan For Top Spot On Spotify
Meghan Markle’s podcast Archetypes took down The Joe Rogan Experience as the top podcast on Spotify in the United States on Thursday, just two days after the Duchess of Sussex dropped the first episode of her highly-anticipated podcast.
Archetypes’ ascent ended Rogan’s reign at the top of the Spotify podcast charts, which he had held off and on for nearly three years—although his podcast has been topped before—even amid criticism over claims he was spreading misinformation on Covid-19 vaccines.
Archetypes, which Markle describes as an interview series to “dissect, explore and subvert the labels that try to hold women back,” also premiered above The Official Game of Thrones Podcast: House of the Dragon, Girls Next Level and Huberman Lab, which took the third, fourth and fifth spots in Spotify’s charts—the streaming service does not list the number of plays each podcast received.
Markle released the first episode of her podcast on Tuesday, featuring an interview with 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams, who recently announced she will retire from pro tennis.
In addition to the U.S., Markle’s podcast also topped Spotify’s podcast charts in Australia, Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom.
[...]
forbes.com
The second episode of Meghan's “Archetypes” Podcast has been released. It features Mariah Carey, Amanda Seales, and Dr. Mashinka Firunts Hakopian in an episode called “The Duality of Diva"
I actually liked this episode more than last weeks. They had really good chemistry. I think that Mariah's embrace of the word diva is great. Like she said "who wants to be basic?". Love that! It was really interesting looking back at how the the title diva started positive and then became a negative label. According to the experts who spoke on the word diva within the podcast - the negativity around the word, goes back to women and/or minorities defying the status quo to be unapologetically themselves, becoming successful and powerful, which makes people uncomfortable. This also tied back into last week's topic about ambition.
I like that Meghan still included that part where she feels uncomfortable in the episode, it could have easily been edited out. It really shows how words do have power.
I like that Meghan still included that part where she feels uncomfortable in the episode, it could have easily been edited out. It really shows how words do have power.