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Kate Middleton radiated glow as she welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron, to UK, with Prince William.

According to a body language expert, the Princess of Wales looked radiant and happy during the French state visit, with her warm smile towards William drawing attention.

Speaking with The Mirror, body language expert Judi James noted that Kate appeared genuinely delighted, showing no signs of strain despite her ongoing recovery from illness. 

“Macron has been all charm and smiles, winking at Kate during the banquet dinner and bending to kiss her hand on arrival like a true gallant,” she said of the guests.

The expert added, “And his hosts have been equally fulsome in their displays, despite their obvious background circumstances, like their treatment and recovery from illness.

“Charles has rarely looked as chipper, chuckling and giggling in a state of fine good humour throughout the evening despite his cancer and despite suffering from one very bloodshot eye.

“William and Kate were tactile, flirty, loving and positively glowing, with Kate’s gleaming smile signalling what looked like genuine delight, exuding gracious charm despite her ongoing recovery from illness.”

The appearance came after Kate candidly spoke of her life following completion of her cancer journey.

“You put on a sort of brave face, stoicism through treatment,” she said while meeting cancer patient at Colchester Hospital.

“Treatment’s done, then it’s like, ‘I can crack on, get back to normal,’ but actually, the phase afterwards is really, is really, really difficult.”

The Princess of Wales continued, “You’re not necessarily under the clinical team any longer, but you’re not able to function normally at home as you perhaps once used to.”

“And actually someone to help talk you through that, show you and guide you through that sort of phase that comes after treatment, I think is really valuable.”

King Charles’ decision to invite French chef Raymond Blanc to assist with the state banquet honoring French President Emmanuel Macron has sparked criticism from Darren McGrady, the personal chef to the late Queen Elizabeth and Princess Diana. 

McGrady believes that Charles’ move is “a huge slap in the face” to the Buckingham Palace royal chefs.

The state banquet, held at Windsor Castle’s St George’s Hall, featured a lavish meal with French inspiration and twists. Blanc, a renowned chef and King’s Foundation ambassador, was invited to help create the first course and dessert. 

However, McGrady questioned the decision, saying, “I get that Raymond Blanc is one of the best chefs in the world… but it’s a huge slap in the face to the palace royal chefs.”

Blanc, who has a long friendship with King Charles, emphasized the importance of collaboration and respect. He stated, “We all have an opinion – and I’ve got a different one. I like to bring people together.” 

Blanc also praised the Royal Household’s head chef, Mark Flanagan, who prepared the main course, Rhug Estate chicken with British produce and a French-inspired tarragon sauce.

McGrady also pointed out that Macron would likely not bring British chefs to a state visit in France. However, others have praised King Charles’ decision, seeing it as a mark of respect for the French president and a celebration of culinary collaboration.

“Never more than two.”

That’s Kumail Nanjiani’s general assessment of the modest serving of Asian performers on a typical comedy show lineup (if any at all) when he was starting out in comedy. Even as an actor who’s gone on to find success on hit TV shows like “Silicon Valley” and has flown high in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with “Eternals,” the stereotype of ethnic comedy quotas from his roots in stand-up — which he’s recently returned to a couple years ago — still sticks with him.

Nanjiani recently spoke with The Times about this weekend’s Belly Laughs Festival, a two-day event at L.A. Live that spotlights Asian comedians, cuisine and culture. He was joined by fellow festival performer Jonnie Park (a.k.a. rapper Dumbfoundead) and comedian/actor Sherry Cola (who is no longer performing at the festival due to a scheduling conflict) to talk about the importance of Asian representation in comedy.

During the chat, Nanjiani described not only his love for food (specifically Biriyani Kabob House in Koreatown, which will be at the festival) but also for stand-up. After returning to performing live shows again in 2023, Nanjiani is slated to release “Night Thoughts,” his first comedy special in 12 years, on Hulu later this year. Inspired by the Hollywood slowdown and the writers’ strike that prevented him from pursuing TV and film work, Nanjiani says he returned to doing comedy in order to keep working on stage while the rest of Hollywood was mostly shut down.

“I missed being good at something that I wasn’t good at anymore,” he said. “I didn’t like the feeling like I used to have so much confidence in this now it feels like [I’m] a different person, and so in the strikes, I was like, I want to try again and see if I still love it.” Since then, the Pakistani-born comedian says he’s still hungry for both the craft of comedy and the community that gathers to devour it.

For all three comedians, though moving into acting has elevated their profile on the small and big screen, stand-up is the art form that makes them feel the most sharp. ”I do find being a stand up comedian as a superpower, stepping onto a set, for sure,” says Cola, who most people know from her role as a series regular in the TV show “Good Trouble” or in the 2023 raunchy road-trip comedy “Joy Ride.” “I think because we’re good at crowd work, we have a quickness that not every actor has.”

Belly Laughs, happening Saturday to Sunday, offers a buffet of top-tier Asian comedians performing all weekend inside the Peacock Theater at L.A. Live. Nanjiani takes center stage along with Hasan Minhaj, Margaret Cho, Bobby Lee and over 30 of the funniest Asian comedians to perform headlining shows in L.A. at theaters and clubs around the country.

Outside the venue on L.A. Live’s outdoor plaza, an array of food and activities like mah-jong, karaoke and cooking demonstrations with star chef Tue Nguyen will be available for fest-goers to enjoy throughout the tasty sprawl of Mama’s Nightmarket.

The idea for Belly Laughs took shape about three years ago when Michelle K. Sugihara, executive director and chief executive of the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment (better known as CAPE), joined forces with volunteer festival producer Viv Wang who helped bring on AEG as a venue partner, followed by L.A. outdoor food staple Mama’s Nightmarket and event promotions company Nederlander Concerts. For CAPE, the world’s longest-running nonprofit creating opportunities for Asian and Pacific Islander artists, actors and storytellers in Hollywood, Belly Laughs is a natural extension of its mission over the last 35 years.

“Food and comedy is really a chance to celebrate our culture with the broader L.A. and Southern California communities, but also it’s a celebration of how food comedy culture just brings people together, which is needed now more than ever,” Sugihara said.

For Park, who is also performing at Belly Laughs, his transition from music to stand-up comedy and podcasting more than 10 years ago was an effort to find a new way to express himself as he matured and became mildly more responsible. “I started [rapping at] 14 years old and it had a lot of youthful energy to it. And as I got older, there’s a lot of things I wanted to talk about that I didn’t want to [express] over beats,” he said. “I didn’t want to share those adult things about my finances and doing taxes. I didn’t want to make ‘doing taxes rap,’ he jokes.

Park said his ability to use humor to give back to his community as a longtime resident of L.A.’s Koreatown helps foster more opportunities for Koreans from his neighborhood to see stand-up shows and festivals like Belly Laughs.

“When I was growing up, a lot of Koreans in my neighborhood had never seen a stand-up show,” he said. “I’ve thrown a couple of all-Asian stand-up comedy shows in my neighborhood, and a lot of people who come, it was their first stand up show. They don’t even go to the Comedy Store, the Laugh Factory — none of that. So [a festival like Belly Laughs] might be their first one.”

If that’s the case, any newcomers to L.A.’s comedy scene are likely to leave full and happy by the end, as the fest serves up not only amazing food but an inclusive environment to see comedy from an Asian perspective without feeling othered as part of a quota on a comedy lineup or the butt of any scathing racial humor — at least not by non-Asian comedians.

“If anyone’s gonna roast my people, it’s gonna be me,” Park said with a grin. “I think there’s a little bit of that with us as [Asian] comedians and talking about our own culture. We have to take ownership of that.”

Cola concurs, adding that after being the subject of racial jokes for decades, the best way to counteract the sting of the stereotypes is for Asian comedians to write jokes about their cultures that help their communities laugh the hardest—just hopefully not while chewing their food.

“I don’t know if it’s just society trying to define us and put us in a box, but it’s almost like we just recently got permission to laugh at ourselves,” Cola said. “Because we’ve been the punch line for years in the media, but now it’s like [a chance to] exhale, because this is a safe space. That’s kind of what Belly Laughs is giving.”