Astrology of Today’s News

King Charles’ slimmed down monarchy appears (according to heavily leaked rumours) to include withholding the title of Duke of Edinburgh from Prince Edward, despite it being promised by his parents, in favour of Princess Charlotte. The argument put forward being that she is second child to the heir and could even conceivably accede to the throne and the title of Duchess of Edinburgh was held by the Queen herself after her marriage.

  The astrology certainly indicated increased tensions with the Wessexes so what lies ahead does not suggest future decisions will be received amiably.

  Charles’ Scorpio Sun is square Edward’s Saturn in Aquarius so there would always be a distance between them, not the least because of the considerable 15 year age gap. Their relationship chart has a jostling-for-the-upper-hand Jupiter opposition Pluto in a chained-together and resenting-it square to Saturn. Plus an uncompromising and explosive Mars opposition Uranus square Neptune. They were never natural allies.

  Their relationship was under considerable stress over Charles’ divorce from Diana so there may still be resentment lingering from old slights which Charles’ Scorpio Sun won’t let go.

  If anything Camilla’s relationship with Edward is even trickier, chillier and running at cross purposes, more so than usual over the next two years plus.

  Sophie is disappointed in Charles’ decisions ahead and devastated by the change from her recent elevation as Queen Elizabeth’s confidante with no joy from Camilla either.

  Both Edward and Sophie also look uncertain and under-supported in their relationship with Prince William, who seems to be taking a firm position on many Royal matters.

  Family cross-currents are bad enough in a normal brood and heightened many-fold amongst the Royals. Charles is notoriously thin-skinned and can be petulant. While slimming down is a good idea, the Wessexes do pull their weight in endless ribbon-cutting, hand-shaking events and there won’t be enough of the inner circle to cope if the shrinkage goes too far.    

Irene Cara, the singer and actress best known for her title track in the 1980 film Fame, as well as co-writing and singing the smash hit Flashdance has died. She later starred in films opposite Clint Eastwood and Tatum O’Neal.

  She was born 18 March 1959 10.41 am New York, the youngest of five with a Puerto Rican father and Cuban-American mother and started her career on Spanish-language television.

   She had a 10^th house musical Pisces Sun and a creative/musical Neptune in her performing 5^th house.  Her Mercury in upfront Aries in her career 10^th was also highlighted being in an inventive and feisty trine to Uranus sextile Mars; as well as on the focal point of a resourceful and ambitious Cardinal T square to Moon in Cancer opposition Saturn. And to add to all of that she had a confident, determined Pluto square Jupiter – she was quite a force of nature.

Sustaining a 20 year plus marriage in Hollywood is no mean feat. When Catherine Zeta Jones married a 25 years older Michael Douglas, a self-confessed sex-addict in 2000 there were doubts about whether it would last. Through a few trials and tribulations with his cancer and imprisonment of his son from his first marriage for drug dealing and her admitted bi-polar condition leading to a short separation they have managed to hold it together.

  They are both Sun Libras – she 25 September 1969 2.40pm Swansea, Wales; and he 25 September 1944 10.30 am New Brunswick, NJ. While two Libras might seem an odd match there are more same sign marriages than you would imagine. He is a creative and vague Sun Neptune square Saturn opposition a Capricorn Moon. While she is an independent and strong-minded Sun Uranus conjunct Pluto and square Mars.

  Her Mars is conjunct his Moon and opposition his Saturn which will create some friction while her Pisces Moon opposes his Sun Neptune. Not all ideal. But the saving grace is the relationship chart with an affectionate composite Sun Venus conjunct Jupiter – love and luck will help them along. Jupiter in particular in relationship charts smooths round rough edges. There is a composite Moon opposition Uranus which will thrive with patches of separation with both away working.

  The wedding chart of 18 November 2000 7.30pm might seem discouraging with a workaholic and cool Sun opposition Saturn; but there was an upbeat Grand Trine of Jupiter trine Mars trine Neptune, formed into a Kite by a power-couple Jupiter opposition Pluto. Many more pluses than minuses.

  Both are still going strong on the work front. He was garlanded for his Netflix The Kominsky Method and is kept busy by Marvel epics. She is on a professional roll playing Morticia Addams in Netflix’s Wednesday and in December she stars in the long-awaited Disney+ National Treasure: Edge of History.

Labour and the Lib Dems, the opposition and third largest of UK parties, both look upbeat in 2023 with smatterings of success in 2024 or 2025 but not good beyond which seems odd given the sinkholes the Conservatives have created for themselves.

   The Liberal Democrats, 3 March 1988, have a lucky, confident, successful tr Pluto square Jupiter through 2022 and 2023 alongside a few muddles and disappointments. By early 2024 there is a trapped, dead-halt, meltdown Solar Arc Mars square Pluto and with the exception of one lucky blip in 2025, what comes after is not encouraging. Tr Neptune entering Aries from 2025 onwards won’t do them any favours as it squares their Uranus, Saturn, Mars for several years thereafter.  

  Ed Davey’s Leadership chart 27 August 2020 11.35am London – (to be treated with caution since leaders come and go and their fortunes are not necessarily tied to the party’s) –  shows a depressing slog with anchors dragging through 2023/4 and a triumph in 2025 with the Solar Arc Jupiter conjunct Pluto.

  The Labour Party 12 February 1906 chart has a successful, confident tr Pluto trine the Jupiter through 2022/23 though will also be contending with a downbeat tr Saturn conjunct Sun, Venus across this New Year moving into a Saturn Return by April, followed by tr Uranus square the Sun Venus which will see jolting changes running into 2024. Through 2024/25 there are indications of some success but a steep decline from 2027 onwards for a few years as tr Neptune is conjunct the Mars and then square Neptune and Uranus.

  The Labour Party 27 February 1900 chart is less encouraging with an enthusiasm-denting 2024 from tr Saturn square the Jupiter Uranus and Pluto plus a catastrophic tr Pluto conjunct Mars/Saturn in 2024/25. And a run of setbacks and jangles in the three years following.

  Keir Starmer’s Leadership chart, 4 April 2020 10.45am has four significant Pluto transits to midpoints in 2023, one of which is successful, and the other three fairly dire – and one of the disastrous ones runs through 2024 as well.

  His own personal chart, 2 September 1962, does not indicate an easy few years ahead which may be personal issues rather than party ones and there is no way of sorting out without a birth time quite what is causing his problems. He has a downbeat tr Saturn conjunct his Jupiter and opposition his Uranus in 2023 and then opposition his Sun Pluto in 2024 alongside a raft of truly difficult Solar Arcs in 2024/25/26.

Add On: The Reform Party was set up on 23 November 2018 as a right-wing, populist Brexit party when there was a confident Sun Jupiter in Sagittarius opposition a Gemini Moon in an over-the-top-enthusiastic square to Mars in Pisces and Mercury in Sag square Neptune. So a high-wire, scattered Mutable whirlwind. Plus an emotionally excitable Venus opposition Uranus. Tr Pluto will be giving them uplift in a minor way sextile Sun and Jupiter between now and 2025; plus a go-ahead tr Pluto square the Sun/Jupiter midpoint in 2023/24. But there are just as many Neptune transits bringing disappointments as well. So some success but not overwhelming.

 A surprise ouster of Disney’s recent CEO in favour of the much-loved and respected former top honcho Bob Iger took Hollywood and Mouse House staffers by surprise. Bon Chapek, despite being a long-time Disney executive had a stormy passage in the top job from 2020 with losses mounting due to exclusive streaming releases and was summarily let go. During Iger’s stewardship of Disney from 2005 to 2020, the company grew its animation studio, acquired core brands such as Star Wars and Marvel, and launched Disney+ to a massive subscriber base.

  Disney, 16 October 1923, is in a stalled phase with the Solar Arc Pluto conjunct the Sun Saturn in Libra now – and that is deprived and blocked. There should be an improvement in morale when tr Uranus opposes the Jupiter come May 2023 onwards though there will still be swamps ahead even with Iger’s steady hand on the tiller. Tr Neptune opposing the Disney Mars in 2024/25 suggests there’ll be no quick fixes.

  Iger, 10 February 1951, is a Sun Aquarius opposition Pluto which is being rattled by the tr Saturn square tr Uranus at the moment and through 2023 – so he’s not exactly at ease and with his Solar Arc Saturn approaching the square to his Jupiter over coming months he may wonder what he’s let himself in for.

  His relationship chart with Disney does have a helpful and lucky composite Earth Grand Trine though it will be under considerable pressure through 2023/24.

  Bob Chapek, 21 August 1960, a New Moon, Mercury, Uranus in Leo had been with Disney for 26 years rising up the ladder. Though his relationship chart with Disney was never good with a hostile composite Mars Pluto conjunction and an evasive Sun Neptune – and an up and down Saturn opposition Uranus. Surprising he made it to the top however briefly.  

The Tories are in a dying-days-of-the-Roman-Empire phase with a pile up of bullying complaints against Deputy PM Dominic Raab; and now Michael Gove dragged into the PPE scandal. Denials are flying in all directions but the VIP fast-track for mega-million pound contracts during covid has come under condemnation with Baroness Michelle Mone (a David Cameron 2015 surprise elevation to the House of Lords), in the spotlight for supporting Medpro secure contracts worth more than £200 million. She is under investigation by the House of Lords Commissioners for Standards for allegedly failing to declare an interest in PPE Medpro. Michael Gove, then a Cabinet Minister, allegedly was involved in facilitating her involvement.

 Labour’s Angela Rayner said in the House that during the pandemic ministers had been “handing out billions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash”, even though much of the PPE secured was “unfit for use, unusable, overpriced or undelivered”. And why was the government wasting £700,000 a day on storing unusable PPE? She said it was yet another case of taxpayers’ money being wasted, “with a total failure of due diligence and a conflict of interest at the heart of government procurement”.

PPE Medpro has itself come under investigation by the National Crime Agency (NCA). According to the Times charities linked to Baroness Mone and her husband are distancing themselves from the couple after they were accused of secretly receiving £29 million by lobbying for Medpro.

  Mone, 8 October 1971 4.55pm Glasgow who started in lingerie and married a financier, has a money-oriented 8^th house Sun, Uranus, Mercury and Venus in Libra as well as Pluto – and that is one power-packed chart. She’s another of the head-in-the-clouds and can-be-scandal-attracting Jupiter Neptune opposition Saturn brigade with an ultra-determined, risk-taking Mars in Aquarius on her Ascendant. She was on a high during the pandemic with her Solar Arc Sun Uranus crossing her Jupiter but that stroke of luck has now passed in influence and she has a self-esteem jarring tr Uranus square her Mars at the moment and early next year and is generally moving into a low-profile less successful time ahead with tr Saturn into her First Quadrant and tr Pluto into her restrictive 12th.

  Michael Gove, 26 August 1967, a Sun, Mercury, Venus in Virgo with Uranus Pluto also in Virgo is sagging under the tr Saturn oppositions over the next two years – 2023 in particular – and nerve wracked with tr Neptune opposition his Uranus in 2023. In general he looks undermined, panicky and doing badly in 2023, with jolts and jangles especially from mid year onwards and heading for cataclysmic setbacks in 2024/25.

  His relationship with Sunak is heading downhill through this December, chilled to the marrow in January/February and worse through mid 2023 and on. They are not naturally compatible but chained together by circumstance and resenting each other. It won’t part easily or amicably.

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America’s Royal family, the Kennedys, are catching the headlines with Kerry Kennedy, daughter of Robert F lauding Prince Harry and Meghan; while JFK’s grandson Jack Schlossberg is squiring the Wales on their Boston trip. Plus ca change.

  There is general bafflement about the RFK’s Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award for ‘moral courage’ being awarded to the Sussexes by – of all people – Alec Baldwin, lately embroiled in an on-set shooting debacle. Zelensky will quite rightly be honoured. But he stands alongside several industry captains and the young erstwhile Royals whose ‘speaking truth to power’ has been substantially queried in terms of veritas.

  A Kennedy biographer described the award as ‘somewhere between sublimely ridiculous and blatantly ludicrous. It’s absurd.’

  Kerry Kennedy, 8 September 1959 12.55pm Boston, Massachusetts, previously married to Andrew Cuomo, is a lawyer and human rights activist, fronting several RFK charitable foundations. She has a Virgo Sun close to her midheaven with a dogmatic and persuasive (manipulative) Pluto Venus Mercury in Virgo also in her much travelled 9^th. An ambitious Mars in Libra in her career 10^th will make her a go-getter. It is in a short-tempered square to Mars and also sextiles a money-oriented Moon Jupiter in Scorpio on her Ascendant. Saturn trine Pluto, Venus, Mercury will give her endurance as well as a hard-edged, chilly temperament when it comes to interpersonal relationships.

   Quite why she made her selection is mystifying even going by the astrology. Admittedly Harry’s Virgo Sun falls in her 10^th as does Meghan’s Moon Jupiter Saturn. But the relationship charts with the Sussexes and indeed with Alec Baldwin are all riven with irritation and distrust.

  Kerry Kennedy’s Sun conjunct the Midheaven and her Mars in the 10^th as well as a Moon Jupiter conjunction, point to a strong connection with her mother Ethel Kennedy, who was left with eleven children when RFK was assassinated in 1968. She had a gothic life – both  her parents were alcoholics and were killed as was a brother in separate plane crashes. Not only was her husband RFK shockingly killed but one son died of a drug overdose, another’s reckless driving left a girl paralyzed for life, and yet another son died in a skiing accident.

   Ethel Kennedy, 11 April 1928 3.30am Chicago, has a 2^nd house Sun Jupiter in Aries trine a 10^th house Saturn trine Neptune – a well-organised do-er with Saturn in her 10^th, fired by inspiration and faith in her own abilities from a Fire Grand Trine and attention-seeking with Pluto in the 5^th.  When RFK was killed the tr Uranus Pluto in late Virgo was square her Saturn and moving to square her Moon in the aftermath.

Though the considerable losses in her life are less obvious than in her daughter’s .  Maybe all that Fire and faith kept the horror at bay.

Kerry on the other hand has Mars square Saturn which can occur in charts where a parent dies early and in her case siblings as well.

  Not sure what this all adds up to – and the Kennedys are such a vast family, they are even worse than the Windsors in scale so not possible to encapsulate. But they keep popping up.

Pic: JMHX

As Nancy Pelosi exits stage left having been the first woman elected Speaker of the US House of Representatives, she has endorsed as her successor Hakeem Jefferies who could become the first person of colour to lead a political party in either chamber of Congress.

   Born 4 August 1970 in New York with a social worker mother and a substance-abuse counsellor father, he attended local state schools and studied law at university. He acted as one of the prosecutors in Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial. Even if he succeeds Pelosi in leading his party in the lower chamber of Congress, he is unlikely to seize the Speaker’s gavel for at least two years.

  He is said to be a unifier though he will have problems with an increasingly vocal progressive wing of the Democratic party, spearheaded by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They have sought to paint Jeffries as a member of the establishment.

 He is a flamboyant Sun Mars in Leo though his ostentatious traits will be damped down by Saturn in Taurus opposition Neptune and trine Pluto Venus in Virgo. He also has his Mercury and Moon in Virgo.

  He is in a successful phase with tr Pluto square his Jupiter through 2022/23 though it does not meet the exact aspect again until January 13 2023 but will certainly see him buoyant as the new term gets underway.

  He’s not an easy fit with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, with their relationship chart having an argumentative composite Sun Mars opposition Saturn and square Neptune which certainly suggests a good deal of aggravation and distrust.

The insurmountable problem of the Northern Ireland Protocol will be resolved Rishi Sunak blithely assured Joe Biden by the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement next April. No details were forthcoming about how and given the intransigence of the DUP, never mind the EU, there seems little likelihood of flexibility on either side.

  The Good Friday chart does have Mars in late degree Aries catching the trapped, frustrating square from tr Pluto through till late 2023 which looks ominously blocked.

  The Northern Ireland 7 December 1922 3.28pm Belfast chart looks rattled in early 2024 with the Solar Arc Mars square Uranus which could provoke outbursts of violence; with more shocks and over-reactions in 2024 with tr Uranus square the Mars, which could also have financial implications with the NI Venus being tied in.

  There is an argument that Unionism is dying. A 2021 poll showed only 11 per cent of voters would oppose a united Ireland with 30 per cent in favour plus a good many don’t knows. At the recent elections, for the first time Sinn Fein polled more votes than the Unionists.

  It would not be an easy transition given the amount of bad blood and actual blood that has flowed and the red-necked dogmatism of the true-believer unionists. But it may come eventually.

  The DUP are a motley crew with a former leader being a creationist and the present one having voted against the Good Friday Agreement. They are anti same sex marriage and abortion rights as well as being climate change deniers and regularly sabotage the workings of the assembly.

    The Partition of Ireland happened on 3 May 1921 with a Taurus Sun square Neptune; and on a Jupiter Saturn conjunction in Virgo opposition Uranus. Once tr Uranus clears the square to the Mars by 2025 there may be less heat and it moves towards a Uranus Return by 2028 which could be an indicator of a return to status quo.

  Whether the Republic of Ireland would welcome with any relish taking on board ‘hundreds of thousands of embittered, alienated and demonstrably violence-prone Northern Protestants’ is another matter.

  But over the longer term attitudes may change. In 2025/26 tr Pluto will square the Republic of Ireland Taurus Sun – 24 April 1916 12.25pm Dublin, which will certainly bring considerable changes under pressure. And before then tr Pluto will oppose the Ireland Neptune which will soften up the mood, mainly through confusion.

  It seems unlikely and maybe I’m naive but I cannot believe the Cromwellian bigots both amongst the Northern Ireland protestants and the right-wing Tories can cling onto their flat earth beliefs and still be in a position to stop progress and détente.