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By CNN's Royal Correspondent Max Foster and Billy Stockwell in London

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Prince Harry hit the ground running in New York City this week, making appearances at a blitz of events on a solo trip, as UN General Assembly High-level Week and Climate Week got underway. 

The King’s youngest son made powerful addresses on a range of issues close to his heart, including online safety, mental health, minefields and combating the climate crisis. The subjects he tackled as he took to the stage day after day highlighted and celebrated several charities and projects he has been associated with for years. 

Harry’s visit to the Big Apple has been reminiscent of a trip his mother made to the city in 1989. It was her first time representing the Crown abroad without Charles by her side, during which she won the hearts of America and changed perceptions of the British royal family across the pond. 

During that visit 35 years ago – which was dramatized in Series 4 of Netflix’s “The Crown” – the princess visited the Henry Street Settlement, a not-for-profit housing project in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan.

The day was “unforgettable” and brought “international attention” to their work to help disadvantaged communities, according to the organization.

Verona Middleton-Jeter gave the princess a tour of the family shelter. “She got out the car… and then she said, ‘Hey, we’re wearing the same colors.’ So, that for me was like the icebreaker,” she recalled to the project’s historian Katie Vogel in 2020. “She was so real and down to Earth.”

Middleton-Jeter added: “She was much different than we really had expected. We expected royalty to be, you know, real royal and puffed up, but she was not that way at all.” 

Terry Fincher/Getty Images

While in town, Diana also visited a children’s HIV/AIDS ward at Harlem Hospital and captured the attention of the world by hugging a 7-year-old boy with the illness.   

“She saw a child in need and she just picked them up and embraced them. And it was heartfelt,” Ebone Macintosh Carrington, whose mother ran the women, infants and children's program at the hospital at the time, told CNN in 2021.  

“These are kids who didn't have that at all. And she gave that to them. And she's a princess,” Carrington added. It was the kind of compassionate gesture that had been seen from the royal before. Two years prior, Diana had intentionally shaken hands with an AIDS patient in London without gloves during the opening of the UK’s first HIV/AIDs clinic. It was a caring but controversial gesture that debunked the myth that HIV/AIDS could be spread by touch. And it sent a simple message around the world: if a royal family member wasn’t afraid, neither should anyone else.  

A trip anticipated by many to be fashion-focused and superficial (the New York Post reportedly called Diana “the most famous welfare mother in the world” ahead of the visit, according to Netflix’s “The Crown”) became one of the princess’ most successful foreign visits.  

Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images

Harry spoke about his late mother’s legacy at multiple events this week. 

On Monday, the duke took part in a discussion at the Concordia Summit in New York about the global mental health crisis facing young people. The discussion was moderated by The Diana Award, a charity founded in 1999 in memory of the princess.  

“I know my mum would be incredibly proud of you guys,” Harry told two young activists, Chiara Riyanti Hutapea Zhang, 18, from Indonesia and Christina Williams, 27, from Jamaica. “Your activism and passion is so true to how my mum led her life.”  

At an event hosted by The Halo Trust later in the day, Harry said the organization’s work “meant a great deal” to his mother.  

In 1997, at the height of Angola’s deadly war and not long before her death, Diana visited a minefield with the charity and comforted child amputees impacted by the conflict. In another sign of her far-reaching impact, she made global headlines when she walked through a live minefield in Huambo. Harry followed in her footsteps 22 years later, visiting the same site that has now been cleared of danger.

“Carrying on her legacy is a responsibility that I take seriously,” the prince said in New York this week. “And I think we all know how much she would want us to finish this particular job.” 

Prince William has congratulated the finalists of this year’s Earthshot Prize for their “unwavering dedication” to tackling some of the world’s most pressing environmental issues. The 15 finalists were announced at the third-annual Earthshot Innovation Summit in New York City on Tuesday and included teams from six continents.  

France, Ghana, Indonesia, Kazakhstan and Nepal all have teams in contention for the first time.  

The hopeful eco-innovators on this year’s shortlist include an alliance of indigenous nations in Ecuador, a global intelligence start-up and a company which uses mushrooms to make an eco-friendly leather alternative. 

“The passion of these finalists is a testament to what can be achieved when we tap into the enormous creativity, ingenuity, and optimism of communities around the world,” the prince said in a statement. “Representing every corner of the globe, these finalists are leading the way in solving some of the most urgent environmental challenges.” 

William founded the 10-year initiative in 2020 with the goal of funding 50 “trailblazing” environmental projects by 2030. Since the scheme launched, it has delivered more than £75 million (around $100 million) in direct funding and in-kind support, according to organizers. 

The competition has five categories: “Protect and Restore Nature,” “Clean Our Air,” “Revive Our Oceans,” “Build a Waste Free World,” and “Fix Our Climate.”  

Finalists are now in the running for five £1 million pots (about $1.3 million) and winners will be selected by the Prince of Wales and a panel of experts including Queen Rania of Jordan and David Attenborough. The victorious teams will use the money to “scale innovative solutions that the world needs if we are to collectively achieve critical environmental goals,” according to a statement by the Earthshot Prize.  

Winners will be announced at a star-studded ceremony in Cape Town, South Africa, on November 6. Find out more about all of this year’s finalists here.  

Sotheby's

A diamond necklace that has been worn at two British coronations and is thought to have stones from the infamous necklace at the heart of a Marie-Antoinette scandal is expected to fetch up to $2.8 million at auction. 

Read more about the royal jewel here. 

Bo Amstrup/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP/Getty Images

Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II has been discharged from hospital following a fall last week which left the 84-year-old royal with a neck injury and a hand fracture, according to a statement by the Danish royal family. Following treatment at the Rigshospitalet hospital in Copenhagen, Margrethe – who announced her surprise abdication earlier this year after 52 years on the throne – returned to her country residence at Fredensborg Palace last Friday. Her royal duties have been put on hold while she recuperates, the royal household said. The Queen is said to be in “good spirits” despite the incident, but she will be in recovery “for a long time” and will need to wear a plaster cast and neck collar over the coming months, according to the statement.  

"We will never forget the heroism and sacrifice made by so many in the pursuit of peace and liberation."

– King Charles III

The British monarch sent a message on Saturday to mark the 80th anniversary of Operation Market Garden, the “largest airborne assault in history and one of the boldest Allied operations of the Second World War,” according to the royal household. The Princess Royal attended a service in the Netherlands the following day on her brother’s behalf.