Will Kate arrive beneath a brolly? Forecasters predict heavy showers in London for Royal Wedding Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1380384/Royal-Wedding-Weather-forecast-predicts-rain-Prince-William-Kate-Middletons-big-day.html#ixzz31OWcXEwV

The world’s first glimpse of Kate Middleton’s wedding dress could be obscured by brollies, warn weather experts.

Despite earlier predictions that the sun would shine on the royal newlyweds, updated forecasts yesterday indicated a strong chance of a traditional April shower.

The Met Office said temperatures would be 'noticeably cooler' due to a north-easterly breeze, with 'most parts of southern England at risk of seeing showers throughout Friday'

Final preparations: Regent Street is awash with Union Jack flags ready for the Royal Wedding this Friday - but the weather forecast is threatening to put a dampener on the excitement

Apart from flunkeys with oversized umbrellas having to protect Kate's hair and gown on the short walk from her car to the Westminster Abbey entrance, a shower would also spoil the couple's plans for an open-top coach journey back to Buckingham Palace.

The entire Royal Family will travel in covered coaches if it rains, a St James’s Palace spokesman confirmed yesterday. 

After a scorching bank holiday weekend and the hottest April day for more than  60 years, rain would be a major disappointment for William – who insisted on a spring wedding despite warnings from aides that the decision could backfire and reinforce Britain's rainy reputation in front of a worldwide audience of two billion.

But, as he is understood to have pointed out previously, it poured during the 1953 coronation of his grandmother the Queen – and that took place in June.

Contingency plans have been drawn up by courtiers to cater for every eventuality on Friday.
William and Kate plan to use the open-top 1902 State Landau but in wet weather they will use the Glass Coach which transported Lady Diana Spencer to St Paul's Cathedral for her wedding to Prince Charles in 1981.

The couple’s separate journeys to the 11am ceremony will not be affected as they are both travelling by car.

Final preparations: William and Kate will be hoping they miss the showers when they marry at Westminster Abbey on April 29

And once at the palace following the ceremony, their much-awaited balcony appearance will happen 'virtually no matter what... with no plans to alter the timing', a royal aide insisted.

It is not possible to erect a gazebo or awning on the slim balcony. In the event of torrential rain William, 28, and his bride, 29, will either decide to clutch umbrellas or once again rely on courtiers during their appearance – and the much-awaited kiss – alongside their families at 1.25pm.

A St James's Palace courtier said: 'It will be up to them personally on the day whether they want to hold an umbrella. 

'There is no point in worrying about things that are out of our control until the day itself.' 

The Ministry of Defence insisted that a flypast scheduled for 1.30pm and featuring a Lancaster, Hurricane, Spitfire, two Tornado GR4 and two Typhoons was 'very robust'. 

A spokesman said: 'It’s all calculated around visibility and cloud base. At this time of year the weather is very unlikely to have an effect.' 

• Amid the excitement of the wedding service, William and Kate will enjoy one private moment with their families. 

After their vows, the newlyweds will pass through the small arched south door of the Chapel of St Edward the Confessor – the patron saint of difficult marriages – behind the altar to sign the marriage register. 

No television cameras will be allowed to capture the private moment. Close family members are expected to act as witnesses.

One DOES have other family commitments, you know...

While Kate and William were entirely preoccupied with the big day, it was family business as usual for the Queen.

Her grandson Peter Phillips and his wife Autumn Kelly celebrated their baby daughter’s christening in a quiet corner of Gloucestershire at the weekend.

The ceremony for the Queen’s first great granddaughter, Savannah Phillips, was held at the Church of the Holy Cross in Avening.

The Queen and Prince Philip attended the christening of their great grand-daughter Savannah at the Holy Cross Church in Avening, Gloucestershire

Dressed in a traditional cream-coloured silk-and-lace gown, the fourth-month-old baby – who is 12th in line to the throne – behaved beautifully as she was cooed over by her doting relatives in the sundrenched village near Princess Anne’s home, Gatcombe Park.

The Queen, in striking lime-green suit and hat, looked on proudly as she stood beside Peter, 33, and his Canadian-born wife outside the church, whose timber frame dates back to the 14th century.

Mrs Phillips, 32, was brought up a Roman Catholic but renounced her faith shortly before their wedding in May 2008 so her husband-to-be did not have to giveup his claim to the throne. Also there were Peter’s mother and father Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips, together with Anne’s second husband Tim Laurence.

His sister Zara, 29, accompanied by her rugby player fiance Mike Tindall, wore a patterned shift dress and fascinator.

Amateur photographer Ian Mcdonald, 69, who captured the intimate scene at midday on Saturday, told the Mail: ‘It could not have been further from a state occasion.

It was just the family getting together to welcome a new little one. The Queen could have been any proud grandma

Enjoy it while you can: Woolacombe's beach was also packed with sun worshipers today. But for how long will the hot weather hold out?

Funfair weather friends: A couple cool down while enjoying a ride on Brighton Pier

Unseasonal weather: People enjoying the sun and the sea in Cleveland today - but it is expected to be cooler from tomorrow

Diplomatic Breakdown Amid Bieber Fever in Israel

JERUSALEM — The teenage pop idol Justin Bieber became embroiled in a diplomatic imbroglio on Tuesday when it emerged that plans for a meeting between the singer and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel had been called off, with the sides differing over why.

Enlarge This Image

Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images

Justin Bieber performing in Italy on Saturday.

Related

• Times Topics: Benjamin Netanyahu | Justin Bieber

Mr. Bieber, who was discovered onYouTube and is famous for hits like“Baby,” is in Israel for an outdoor concert on Thursday night.

A spokesman for Mr. Netanyahu said that his office had been approached with the idea of a meeting, and that the prime minister had been “open to that.” The prime minister’s office then suggested including children from communities in southern Israel that have been under intense rocket fire from Gaza in recent days.

“Sadly,” the spokesman said, “that proved impossible,” suggesting that Mr. Bieber’s representatives had turned down the idea of including the children.

But a person involved in arranging the meeting on behalf of Mr. Bieber said that the discussions had been called off for logistical, not political, reasons and that it was more a case of miscommunication than anything else.

Both sides agreed that plans for a meeting had never been finalized.

A spokesman for Mr. Bieber said, “Justin welcomes the chance to meet with kids facing difficult circumstances, regardless of their background, and in fact, he had already invited children from the Sderot area,” referring to the Israeli town near the Gaza border, to attend his concert in Tel Aviv on Thursday.

Since Mr. Bieber arrived in Israel on Monday he has been mobbed by screaming teenage girls and overwhelmed by paparazzi, leading him to complain on Twitter that he had even been hounded at holy places.

“They should be ashamed of themselves,” he wrote on Tuesday. “Take pictures of me eating but not in a place of prayer, ridiculous.”

In another Twitter message, he wrote: “i want to see this country and all the places ive dreamed of and whether its the paps or being pulled into politics its been frustrating.”

Mr. Bieber’s representatives said that the last clause had nothing to do with Mr. Netanyahu. Last Thursday, a 16-year-old Israeli boy was critically wounded by an antitank missile fired by Hamas militants from Gaza at a school bus in Israel. That triggered days of intense exchanges of fire, during which 18 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, were killed.

Some international artists, like Elvis Costello and the Pixies, have refused to perform in Israel for political reasons in recent years, adding to the Israelis’ sense of isolation. The arrival of other stars, including Joan Armatrading, Rihanna, Elton John and Rod Stewart, has been celebrated as a sign of normalcy and acceptance.

The spokesman for Mr. Bieber noted, meanwhile, that “despite some logistical challenges, Justin is enjoying his first trip to Israel.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: April 16, 2011

Because of an editing error, an article on Wednesday about canceled plans for a meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and the pop idol Justin Bieber misstated the location of a school bus hit on April 7 in a missile attack by Palestinian militants based in neighboring Gaza. It was in Israel, not Gaza.

Builders of New Homes Seeing No Sign of Recovery

RICHMOND, Ill. — In this distant Chicago suburb, a builder has finally found a way to persuade people to buy a new house: he throws in a car.

Enlarge This Image

Sally Ryan for The New York Times

Kim Meier, top, the owner of KLM Builders, is offering a car with each home sale.

Add to Portfolio

• General Motors

Go to your Portfolio »

Enlarge This Image

Sally Ryan for The New York Times

The promotion has helped sales at the development in Richmond, Ill., but business is still relatively slow.

Enlarge This Image

Sally Ryan for The New York Times

The entryway of a KLM model home.

Kim Meier’s spring promotion, which includes a $17,000 credit at a nearbyGeneral Motors dealer, has produced seven sales since the beginning of March, a veritable windfall of business for a builder who sold only 20 houses last year. “We needed to do something dramatic,” said Mr. Meier. “The market’s been soft.”

That is one way of putting it. The recession hurt a lot of industries, but it knocked the residential construction market to the mat and has kept it there, even as the broader economy has started to fitfully recover.

Sales of new single-family homes in February were down more than 80 percent from the 2005 peak, far exceeding the 28 percent drop in existing home sales. New single-family sales are now lower than at any point since the data was first collected in 1963, when the nation had 120 million fewer residents.

Builders and analysts say a long-term shift in behavior seems to be under way. Instead of wanting the biggest and the newest, even if it requires a long commute, buyers now demand something smaller, cheaper and, thanks to $4-a-gallon gas, as close to their jobs as possible. That often means buying a home out of foreclosure from a bank.

Four out of 10 sales of existing homes are foreclosures or otherwise distressed properties. Builders like Mr. Meier who specialize in putting up entire neighborhoods on a city’s outskirts — Richmond is some 50 miles northwest of downtown Chicago — cannot compete despite chopping prices.

Chicago was not an epicenter of the housing boom with the sort of overbuilding found in Arizona or Florida, but new-home sales in the metro area are down 90 percent. There are about 65 sales a week for a region of 10 million people.

Several factors have combined to make the Chicago market so weak. There were more subprime loans here, which meant more defaults, which in turn left more distressed homes for buyers to choose from.

Most of the construction here was done by private builders. Unlike the national firms, they did not have the resources to survive a prolonged downturn. “Some of the private builders just evaporated, and some said the hell with it,” said Tracy Cross, a consultant who tracks the local market. Only a few remain, including Mr. Meier’s KLM Builders.

Construction of new single-family homes usually surges after a recession because of lower rates and pent-up demand. But the Census Bureau said this week that while multi-unit construction had picked up strongly in the last year, single-family home construction fell 21 percent to an annual rate of 422,000. One consequence of the anemic pace: more than 1.4 million residential construction jobs have been lost in the last five years.

Robert Barycki is one of a handful of buyers keeping the market from drying up completely. He’s 30, a partner in a hardware store, and currently living with his parents. He was drawn by the new-car offer to the biggest of KLM’s four active developments, called Sunset Ridge Estates.

“My money was in the bank, collecting very little interest, so I thought I might as well take a little gamble,” said Mr. Barycki, who is paying $182,000 for a three-bedroom. “Eventually, home-owning will come back.”

Eventually, no doubt. But in the meantime, sentiment might still be souring. Executives at Equity LifeStyle Properties, a Chicago firm that sells properties in resort communities, said this week they were seeing “a psychological change”: potential customers wanted to preserve their capital rather than risk it in real estate.

Bill McBride, who runs the popular financial blog Calculated Risk, said this might be the moment when people decisively started to turn on home ownership. “I’m starting to feel the hate,” he wrote.

In such an atmosphere, every new home built and sold represents a victory. One of the few segments of the market that has shown signs of life is urban townhomes. Lennar, a national builder, has one of these developments under way in the upscale community of Arlington Heights, about 20 miles from downtown Chicago.

Then Pulte, another national builder, started construction on its own townhouse community a few miles away, even as it was recording a 2010 third-quarter loss of a billion dollars. In the meantime, Lennar cut its prices by another 10 percent, but sales in the fourth quarter barely budged.

Lennar says its sales have picked up and it is drawing customers from people who looked at Pulte’s project and passed. Pulte says the same thing about Lennar.

“It’s brutal out there,” said Mr. Cross, the consultant. “You have to put on your boxing gloves.”

Some victories may be brief. Builders say buyers have been acting ahead of a small rise in mortgage insurance premiums from the Federal Housing Administration, which backs many purchases. That mini-rush to lock in a deal might lift March sales figures for new homes, which are due out Monday, analysts say.

Mr. Meier, who has been building in this stretch near the Wisconsin border for 25 years, hopes the car promotion will put a floor under his market. In flush times, he would sell about 100 houses a year to a diverse group of buyers, from empty nesters to commuters.

Richmond bills itself as a “Village of Yesteryear,” which has come true in another way as house prices roll back to the mid-1990s. But some KLM buyers look for more, choosing to skip the car and put the $17,000 into the house instead.

That is what Wayne and Doris Powrozek, who are paying $193,000 for a three-bedroom, did. “If it’s free, it’s for me,” said Mr. Powrozek, who recently retired from AT&T.

The Powrozeks bought because they were worried prices were going up. Mr. Meier says he thinks they must — the cost of raw materials is rising. But with the price of existing homes continuing to fall, and the prospect of more foreclosures, he could again price himself out of the market.

Like nearly all those in real estate, Mr. Meier is determinedly optimistic. “Everybody wants in at the top, no one wants in at the bottom,” he said. “People are paralyzed by their fear.”

Last year, KLM told buyers it would match the government’s $8,000 tax credit. The car promotion more than doubles that. If the market still does not turn around, what could be their next promotion?

“Buy one, get one free,” his wife, Sally, suggested. They had a good laugh over that.

Japanese Revisit Nuclear Zone While They Can

OKUMA, Japan — Residents who lived near the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant flocked to the area on Thursday ahead of a midnight evacuation deadline imposed by the government.

Enlarge This Image

Kosuke Okahara for The New York Times

Michiko Koyama, whose house is near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, returned home with her husband, Nobuo, to retrieve their belongings.
More Photos »

Multimedia

Slide Show

Briefly Returning to the Nuclear Zone

Interactive Feature

Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Multimedia

Related

• Aneyoshi Journal: Tsunami Warnings, Written in Stone(April 21, 2011)

• Japan Prohibits Access to Nuclear Evacuation Zone (April 21, 2011)

While they were greeted by the buckling roads and collapsed houses familiar to many Japanese in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami that wrought such destruction here on March 11, they faced the added burden that dangerous radiation levels from the Daiichi plant might mean they were saying goodbye to their homes for months or years. Some worried they would never return.

In Okuma and nearby towns inside the 12-mile zone around the plant declared off limits by the government, those who returned encountered a ghost town where traffic lights did not function and abandoned dogs lolled in the empty streets.

At a family farm in nearby Tomioka, cows had the run of the place, eating the lettuce in the garden and roaming through the front yard. At a farm in Namie, the scene was grisly: about 40 cows, chained to their posts, lay dead, side by side, in two adjacent barns. Another dead cow was sprawled across the road, blood oozing from its mouth. A few live cows sat serenely nearby, as if nothing had happened.

In Futaba, a town next to the plant, several signs stretching across the empty streets extolled the virtues of atomic energy. “Nuclear power is energy for a brighter future,” read one. Another said, “The correct understanding of nuclear power leads to a better life.”

And at the gate of the Fukushima Daiichi plant itself, workers in white suits and masks turned away an unauthorized car while photographing its license plate. On a board behind the workers someone had written, “Don’t give up.”

The crippled reactors themselves, and the undoubtedly frenzied work going on there, were obscured by hills, some with cherry trees in full blossom.

While the government ordered an evacuation of the area shortly after the nuclear emergency began, it has not enforced the edict until now, and residents have been slipping back into the zone to retrieve their belongings.

Radiation levels around the plant have fallen sharply since the days just after the accident, clearing the way for returnees. A reporter who roamed through various parts of the evacuation zone for five hours on Thursday had a total exposure of about 50 microsieverts, about the same as one would experience on a round-trip flight between New York and Los Angeles.

With the government now enforcing the evacuation order, there is the question of whether those who have ignored  it until now will leave. The government says 78,200 people lived within the 12-mile radius of the plant before the earthquake. A police spokesman in Fukushima Prefecture, where the plant is located, said spot checks on 3,378 addresses in the past three weeks found people at 63 of them.

An additional 62,400 people live 12 to 18 miles from the plant. They were urged to evacuate or to remain indoors.

Tadanori and Eiko Watanabe, who live in that outer zone, about 17 miles from the power plant, have done neither. While worried about radiation, they refused to abandon their 16 beef cows. “Our cows are like our family, and we can’t leave them here,” said Ms. Watanabe, as she and her husband carted away manure in wheelbarrows.

Most of their neighbors have long since left, and their houses are dark. “Especially at night it’s scary,” Ms. Watanabe said, adding that she and her husband passed the time watching television. Ms. Watanabe said that if she were ordered to evacuate, rather than just urged to do so, she would obey. “We’re looking for a place we can go with the cows,” she said.

Kiyoshi Abe, a farmer in Minamisoma who lives about eight miles from the nuclear plant, said he was the only one in his neighborhood not to evacuate. “I’m amazed the Japanese are so obedient,” he said by telephone.

But Mr. Abe, who is 83, said that at his age, “I don’t care about a little bit of radiation.” He also has cancer, which he said might worsen if he had to move.

Mr. Abe and his 81-year-old wife had stockpiled huge bags of rice and other food. “I had a refrigerator and freezer full of foods and was confident I could stay here with no problem for a year or two,” he said.

Multimedia

Slide Show

Briefly Returning to the Nuclear Zone

Interactive Feature

Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Multimedia

Related

• Aneyoshi Journal: Tsunami Warnings, Written in Stone(April 21, 2011)

• Japan Prohibits Access to Nuclear Evacuation Zone (April 21, 2011)

But on March 26, he said, the power went out, and the electric company would not send a repairman into the evacuation zone. “So we spent nights with a candle and had to throw away much of the food,” he said. His wife, he said, was becoming exhausted.

So now, with evacuation mandatory, Mr. Abe will become one of the obedient Japanese. He said he would be driving out on Saturday.

On Thursday, the government said it would arrange bus trips in which one member of each household could return home for two hours, though homes within three kilometers, or nearly two miles, of the plant would be off limits.

But many people hoped to retrieve more by returning by car with family members. That led to some incongruous traffic for a supposedly deserted area. At one point, a line of 10 cars was seen streaming into the zone on the main road from the west.  There were some police roadblocks, but people could talk their way around them.

Wearing a mask, a raincoat, rubber gloves and plastic shopping bags tied around her feet, Michiko Koyama returned to the home in Okuma where she was born and had lived for all of her 50 years.

She had left in a hurry, evacuated by Japanese soldiers a day after the earthquake and tsunami. Dirty dishes from a makeshift meal, prepared after running water and electricity had been knocked out, were still sitting on the table.

Now she was coming home to retrieve financial documents, photo albums and whatever other prized possessions she could fit into the small hotel room where she is staying with her two children and other family members.

“It feels like my house is burning down, so I want to take as much as possible,” she said. “I don’t know how many years it will be before we can come back.”

Finland’s Turn to Right Sends Shivers Through Euro Zone

HELSINKI, Finland — There is hardly a country on the continent that has been a more steadfast supporter of the European Union thanFinland. For more than 20 years, the voters here have returned the same three parties to power in various coalition governments, with few changes in policies.

Enlarge This Image

Jonathan Nackstrand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The True Finns' leader, Timo Soini, waited for election returns Sunday. His party won 39 seats.

Related

• Vote in Finland Could Doom Economic Bailout of Portugal(April 18, 2011)

• Populist Advance in Finland Could Endanger Bailouts (April 19, 2011)

Enlarge This Image

Eva Persson for The New York Times

Perttu Pouttu said immigrants were being pampered: “No one gave me an apartment.”

People joked that watching Finnish politics was about as interesting as watching paint dry.

Until now.

In the general election last weekend, the nationalist and populist True Finn Party emerged from political obscurity after largely campaigning on the evils of the European Union and its bailouts of Greece and Ireland. It claimed 39 seats in Finland’s Parliament — almost eight times the number it won in the 2007 election — and it is likely to become a partner in any coalition government.

The elections drove the governing Center Party from power and left this small and prosperous country reeling. Finns who gather in bars and cafes are dissecting the race, trying to take the measure of what is being called “the protest vote” and what it may mean for their future.

Finland is not alone. Anti-European Union and anti-immigration parties have been on the rise in Sweden, Italy, Hungary and the Netherlands in the past year, and more may follow. It is a worrisome trend for supporters of the union, and for efforts to safeguard the euro by offering emergency loans to the weakest member nations and to better coordinate budget and spending policies in the countries that use it.

Financial bailouts require unanimous approval of all the euro zone members, and there are fears that if Finland balks others may follow.

“One of the dangers is that if a fairly significant country like Finland decides to opt out, the whole support mechanism for the euro could unravel,” said Fredrik Erixon, the director of the European Center for International Political Economy, in Brussels. “There are anti-European opinions and parties not only in Finland but across Europe displaying hostility to using taxpayers’ money for helping neighbors in need.”

The question hangs over the horse trading that has begun over the formation of a new coalition government. Just as the True Finns and their jovial leader, Timo Soini, are pushing an antibailout agenda, Europe is considering yet another rescue package — this time for Portugal.

It is unlikely that the Finnish vote will upend or even delay the Portuguese package, though it could lead to some nervous moments. Usually, it takes about a month to build a governing coalition in Finland, and that is at times when the political parties are not as far apart as they are now.

This week, the departing prime minister, Mari Kiviniemi, declined to bring the bailout issue before Parliament, saying it was up to the new government. At the same time, Olli Rehn, the European Union’s economic and monetary affairs commissioner, was quoted in the Thursday edition of the Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat as saying that Finland needed to take a stand on Portuguese aid by May 25 at the latest.

The new government is expected to include the right-of-center National Coalition Party, the left-leaning Social Democratic Party and the True Finns. The parties disagree on issues like the bailout, tax reform and increasing the retirement age.

Mr. Soini (pronounced SOY-knee) has toned down his words in the last few days, though it is unclear how far he will compromise. He is not talking to the news media except to complain about coverage of his party. But during the campaign, Mr. Soini — who is 48 and has been active in politics since he was 17 — repeatedly lashed out at the European Union. (He is fond of calling it “the heart of darkness.”) A true democracy, he has said, is “only possible in individual states.”

He has also sold himself as a man of the people who is attuned to the needs of the poor and working class at a time when the distance between rich and poor is growing and Finland, like many other European countries, is considering austerity measures.

“Soini talks ordinary language with ordinary words,” said Ville Pernaa, the director of theCenter for Parliamentary Studies at the University of Turku in Finland. “He told the voters that they were wasting money paying for other people’s debts. Why should they pay for that when we need more doctors in the small towns of Finland?”

Perttu Pouttu, a retired worker for a Helsinki energy company who meets friends in theHakaniemi Market Square most mornings, said he had voted for the True Finns because Mr. Soini’s arguments made sense to him.

“Of course the bailouts raise questions,” he said. “Will we get that money back? Where are the banks? This is their problem.”

At the same time, Mr. Pouttu said he was worried that Finland had admitted too many refugees. “It does not touch me personally,” he said. “But it bugs me that by law we have to give them apartments. When I retired, no one gave me an apartment.”

The two issues — the European Union and immigration — are increasingly being linked across Europe. “The overwhelming draw of parties like the True Finns is the feeling among some Europeans that they are losing control of their destiny and that their nations are losing their identity,” said Magali Balent, an expert on European politics at the Robert Schuman Foundation in Paris.

But few analysts here believe that Mr. Soini has any choice but to compromise on the bailouts. Even if Finland failed to act, European Union officials said they could keep the bailout on track through complex technical maneuvers.

Mr. Rehn, the European Union’s economic and monetary affairs commissioner, encouraged Finnish lawmakers to consider the country’s long-term interests, taking into account what might happen, say, when the bloc takes up agricultural subsidies.

In the European news media, particularly in Sweden, the True Finns have come under fire as right-wing racists. Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb and others have defended Mr. Soini from such accusations, though other members of his party hold more radical views on immigration.

“Timo Soini is actually a very civilized guy,” said Lasse Lehtinen, a journalist and Social Democrat who is a former member of the European Parliament. “He reads a lot. He thinks a lot.”

Mr. Lehtinen, like others, said that Mr. Soini benefited in the last election from a quiet unhappiness on many fronts.

“I know a lady who voted for the True Finns because she was annoyed at seeing a Roma begging on the street,” he said. “She said no one had been begging on the streets since the 1940s, and she did not like it.”