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Changing Guard at Buckingham Palace: Camilla Steps Up

This photo taken in May 2017 shows Britain's Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall in Clarence House, London. (Mario Testino via Clarence House via AP)
This photo taken in May 2017 shows Britain's Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall in Clarence House, London. (Mario Testino via Clarence House via AP)
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Changing Guard at Buckingham Palace: Camilla Steps Up

This photo taken in May 2017 shows Britain's Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall in Clarence House, London. (Mario Testino via Clarence House via AP)
This photo taken in May 2017 shows Britain's Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall in Clarence House, London. (Mario Testino via Clarence House via AP)

A gradual changing of the guard is happening at the head of Britain's royal family, as Queen Elizabeth II steps back from public engagements due to her advanced age and health.

The 95-year-old monarch's eldest son and heir, Charles, Prince of Wales, has been shouldering more of the burden of official duties for several years, including overseas.

But his wife, Camilla, is increasingly stepping into the fray, both online during coronavirus pandemic restrictions in the past year and now in person, after curbs were lifted.

Joining the couple at the royal vanguard are Charles' eldest son from his first marriage to Princess Diana, William, and his wife, Kate.

As a result, they have earned a greater share of the media coverage that would previously have gone to the monarch, who has been advised to rest by doctors.

Their presence at events -- from the world premiere of the latest James Bond film to meeting world leaders at the G7 and UN climate summits -- is a clear sign of change to come.

Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty Magazine, told AFP their visibility "will accelerate within the fullness of time".

"But a lot of people are now familiar with Camilla and are getting to know her," he added.

- Rehabilitation -
Camilla, 74, also known as the Duchess of Cornwall, will become consort when Charles, 72, takes the throne. William, 39, will move up the line of succession to heir apparent.

Only a few years ago, a different "Fab Four" were seen as the future of Britain's most famous family: William and Kate along with his younger brother Harry and his wife Meghan.

But plans changed dramatically last year when Harry and Meghan moved to the United States, from where they have criticized the family and even accused it of racism.

The rise of Camilla -- once a hate-figure for being "the other woman" in Charles and Diana's marriage -- has been remarkable.

"Her position has certainly evolved and there's been a huge and very long process of rehabilitation since... she was described as this rottweiler at the time of Diana," royal historian Anna Whitelock told the Daily Express.

Camilla, like other royals, was forced into a more public role by the coronavirus pandemic, when the world moved online.

But she has taken on the role with aplomb and won fans, even if in the eyes of some she can never be forgiven for her role in the collapse of Charles and Diana's marriage.

"There are lots of Camilla supporters out there," said Little.

"The sense is she's coping with it very well. She's been a member of the royal family for 16 years, so she's had quite a bit of experience of high-profile things...

"She's become very proficient at it."

Since the death of the Queen's husband of 73 years, Prince Philip, in April, Camilla has been seen -- and heard -- more frequently at official royal engagements and charity events.

This week she accompanied Charles -- a longstanding environmentalist -- to the UN COP26 summit in Glasgow, to urge world leaders to stop runaway climate change.

Last month she and Charles, who married in 2005, supported the Queen at the official opening of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh and the Welsh Assembly in Cardiff.

She was also present as the monarch undertook her first ceremonial engagement since her husband's death -- the State Opening of Parliament in May.

In the coming weeks, the couple embark on the first royal overseas tour since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, visiting Egypt, which will host COP27, and Jordan.

- Bigger role? -
Camilla's appearances elsewhere reflect her variety of interests, from promoting literacy via her popular Instagram book club to championing rescue animals.

She gave a well-received speech and backing to a campaign tackling violence against women, dovetailing with support given by Kate to the issue earlier this year.

Camilla has also made several television and radio appearances, speaking about her mother's battle with osteoporosis and her love of gardening and horse breeding.

Reports said she could soon take on a bigger role as one of the "counsellors of state", a group of senior royals appointed to step in if the Queen cannot perform her official duties.

Speculation has mounted because the other counsellors alongside Charles and William -- Prince Andrew and Harry -- are no longer serving royals.

"The Queen may look to add the Duchess of Cornwall, who would become a counsellor of state when Charles is king anyway," constitutional expert Craig Prescott from Bangor University told the Mail on Sunday.

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Varieties

Record Heat and Raging Fires Ring in 2026 Across the Southern Hemisphere 

A helicopter battles a forest fire in the Biobio region, where multiple wildfires have prompted emergency evacuations, in Florida, Chile, January 21, 2026. (Reuters)
A helicopter battles a forest fire in the Biobio region, where multiple wildfires have prompted emergency evacuations, in Florida, Chile, January 21, 2026. (Reuters)
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Record Heat and Raging Fires Ring in 2026 Across the Southern Hemisphere 

A helicopter battles a forest fire in the Biobio region, where multiple wildfires have prompted emergency evacuations, in Florida, Chile, January 21, 2026. (Reuters)
A helicopter battles a forest fire in the Biobio region, where multiple wildfires have prompted emergency evacuations, in Florida, Chile, January 21, 2026. (Reuters)

From Argentina to Australia to South Africa, record heat and raging wildfires are rampaging through the Southern Hemisphere at the start of 2026, with scientists predicting that even more extreme temperatures could lie ahead - and possibly another global annual high - after three of the hottest years on record.

In January, a record-setting heat dome enveloped Australia, sending temperatures near 50 degrees C (122 degrees F) while heat and catastrophic wildfires gripped parts of South America, setting remote parts of Argentina's Patagonia ablaze and killing 21 people in coastal towns in Chile. In addition, South Africa has been experiencing its worst wildfires in years.

The extremes are occurring even as the world remains under the cooling influence of a weak La Nina, a climate cycle marked by cooler waters in the central and eastern Pacific that began in December 2024. Despite this moderating factor, temperatures are reaching record highs in various locales.

"This means the effect of human-caused climate change is overwhelming natural variability," said climate scientist Theodore Keeping of Imperial College London and the international research collaboration World Weather Attribution, who specializes in research on wildfires and extreme heat.

"As we transition into a neutral or even El Nino phase, we'll expect the incidence of extreme heat events around the world to be further amplified," Keeping added.

El Nino typically has the opposite effect of La Nina, warming the central and eastern Pacific and boosting global temperatures.

This year is forecast to be about 1.46 degrees C (2.6 degrees F) above pre-industrial levels, which would make it the fourth consecutive year to be higher than 1.4 degrees C (2.5 degrees F) above pre-industrial levels, according to Adam Scaife, head of the long-range prediction at the United Kingdom's national weather ‌and climate service.

The 2015 ‌international climate treaty, known as the Paris Agreement, aimed to keep warming below 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) above pre-industrial levels.

"If a big ‌El Nino ⁠were to develop ⁠quickly in 2026 then it's still possible 2026 could be a record," Scaife said. The World Meteorological Organization said last month that the past three years were the warmest on record.

FIRE RAGES FROM WOODS TO WATER

While most wildfires are caused by human activity, they are also a natural part of many ecosystems. Persistent heat, drought and extreme temperatures, however, are turning once-manageable fires into increasingly uncontrollable and destructive events.

Many ecosystems are not adapted to such hot, dry conditions, allowing fires to grow larger and more intense, often causing permanent damage, Keeping said.

The fires that burned through Argentina's Los Alerces National Park illustrate the shift, according to meteorologist Carolina Vera of the Center for Ocean and Atmospheric Research at the University of Buenos Aires.

The park, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is home to trees that have lived more than 3,000 years.

Local officials determined that a lightning strike caused the fire. The blaze initially was under control. But Vera said a heat wave and strong winds caused it to spread about 20 km (12 miles) in a single day, making it the worst wildfire there ⁠in two decades.

The region has been drought-stricken since 2008. Temperatures during the first two weeks of January were about 6 degrees C (11 degrees F) above ‌normal.

"These fires used to burn themselves out and form part of the forest's natural dynamics," Vera said.

"This is an example of ‌how climate change can alter a natural fire, because it appeared to be caused by lightning," Vera said.

There are no towns in that remote area.

Fires erupted in the southern part of neighboring Chile later in January and ‌crossed into the greater Concepcion area, the country's third-largest metropolitan region, destroying hundreds of homes and killing 21 people in coastal communities.

Keeping said the blazes mirrored recent disasters in places such as ‌Los Angeles, Athens and the Hawaiian island of Maui.

"Where there's been the greatest loss of life, it almost always comes down to evacuation being difficult or impossible," Keeping said. "That's particularly true in regions affected by strong downslope winds toward the coast."

WHIRLWINDS OF FIRE

About 80% of Punta de Parra, a small coastal town in southern Chile surrounded by hills and forests, was destroyed.

Punta de Parra residents said they had little time to evacuate. Doralisa Silva, 34, said she heard about a fire in a nearby community the night the blaze reached the town.

"Out of nowhere, the forest started burning and all the houses caught fire," Silva said. "The fire was on us in the blink ‌of an eye. There was nothing we could do."

Silva said her family was among the last to try to flee because they had no vehicle. Silva said flames blocked their exit as embers rained down as she and her partner Hermes Barrientos fled with their ⁠2-year-old daughter.

Barrientos said winds of nearly 70 km ⁠per hour (43.5 mph) whipped through the area, creating whirlwinds of fire that spread to the beach and trapped residents. The family and others eventually found refuge in a large dirt field at the center of town, and spent the night watching their community burn.

A FUTURE FILLED WITH FIRES

Record-breaking heat in southeastern Australia has also fueled the country's worst fires since the deadly 2019-2020 season, when 33 people were killed.

In addition, the 2025-2026 fire season has been the most severe in South Africa in a decade, according to officials, killing wildlife and hitting tourist destinations such as Mossel Bay and Franschhoek.

"The hot, dry and windy conditions that drive the most extreme wildfires are becoming more intense and more likely," Keeping said. "And it's happening all around the world."

The Southern Hemisphere has warmed by about 0.15 to 0.17 degrees C (0.27 to 0.30 degrees F) per decade since the 1970s, compared to 0.25 to 0.30 degrees C (0.45 to 0.54 degrees F) in the Northern Hemisphere - largely because its vast oceans absorb heat more slowly and because of Antarctic meltwater.

Still, southern land masses are now warming at similar rates to northern land masses, and contrasts between warming land and cold meltwater can intensify weather patterns, leading to prolonged heat waves, droughts or flooding.

Keeping said adaptation is critical, including authorities managing vegetation near cities and developing effective evacuation plans, and builders using fire-resistant materials. Wildfires are inflicting mounting economic damage. A 2026 report by insurance broker Aon estimated global insured wildfire losses at $42 billion in 2025, up from an average of $4 billion annually between 2000 and 2024. The Los Angeles fires last year were the costliest on record.

Swiss Re, the world's second-largest reinsurer, found that wildfires accounted for about 1% of global insured losses from natural disasters before 2015, but now represent 7%, with economic losses linked to fires rising by about $170 million a year since 1970.

"You actually cannot stop a lot of these really large intense wildfires. They're simply too big," Keeping said.

The most important way forward, Keeping said, is to "have a serious conversation about limiting future climate change to prevent this issue from worsening."

Varieties

Study: Noisy Humans Harm Birds and Affect Breeding Success

FILE - Birdhouses line a path outside a resident's room at the Ida Culver House Ravenna, a senior independent and assisted living home in Seattle, on May 21, 2020. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)
FILE - Birdhouses line a path outside a resident's room at the Ida Culver House Ravenna, a senior independent and assisted living home in Seattle, on May 21, 2020. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)
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Study: Noisy Humans Harm Birds and Affect Breeding Success

FILE - Birdhouses line a path outside a resident's room at the Ida Culver House Ravenna, a senior independent and assisted living home in Seattle, on May 21, 2020. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)
FILE - Birdhouses line a path outside a resident's room at the Ida Culver House Ravenna, a senior independent and assisted living home in Seattle, on May 21, 2020. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)

Noise pollution is affecting bird behavior across the globe, disrupting everything from courtship songs to the ability to find food and avoid predators, a large-scale new analysis showed on Wednesday.

Researchers reviewed nearly four decades of scientific work and found that noises made by humans were interfering with the lives of birds on six continents and having "strong negative effects" on reproduction success.

Previous research on individual species has shown that single sources of anthropogenic noise -- such as planes, traffic and construction -- can affect birds as it does other wildlife.

But for this study, the team performed a wider analysis by pooling data published since 1990 across 160 bird species to see if any broader trends could be established.

The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, found clear evidence of a "pervasive" impact of noise pollution on birds worldwide.

"We found that noise significantly impacts communication risk behaviors, foraging, aggression and physiology and had a strong effect on habitat use and a negative impact on reproduction," AFP quoted it as saying.

This is because birds rely on acoustic information to survive, making them particularly vulnerable to the modern din produced by cars, machinery and urban life.

"They use song to find mates, calls to warn of predators, and chicks make begging calls to let their parents know they're hungry," Natalie Madden, who led the research while at the University of Michigan, said in a statement.

"So if there's loud noise in the environment, can they still hear signals from their own species?"

In some cases, noise pollution interrupted mating displays, caused males to change their courtship songs, or masked messages between chicks and parents.

The study included many common species such as European robins and starlings, house sparrows, and great tits.

The response varied between species, with birds that nest close to the ground suffering greater reproductive harm, while those using open nests experienced stronger effects on growth.

Birds living in urban areas, meanwhile, tended to have higher levels of stress hormones than those outside of cities.

Some 61 percent of the world's bird species have declining populations, mostly due to habitat loss driven by expanding agriculture and logging, the International Union for Conservation of Nature said in October.

The study authors said that noise pollution was an "underappreciated consequence" of humanity's impact on nature, especially compared to biodiversity loss and climate change.

But some relatively simple fixes could make a big difference for birds, they said.

Madden told AFP that shifting from noisier cars and landscaping tools such as mowers and leaf blowers to electric-powered alternatives was one idea.

Another could be "running machinery outside peak breeding seasons, avoiding activity when birds are migrating through an area, or shifting construction away from habitats that support vulnerable species", she added.

Buildings could also be adapted to muffle sound in the same way they are constructed to improve visibility and minimize bird collisions, said the study's senior author Neil Carter, from the University of Michigan.

"So many of the things we're facing with biodiversity loss just feel inexorable and massive in scale, but we know how to use different materials and how to put things up in different ways to block sound," he said.

Varieties

Baboon Siblings Get Jealous Just Like Human Kids, Scientists Find 

Anubis Baboons eat in their enclosure at the French CNRS’ (National Center for Scientific Research) primatology center where various monkey species are raised for the entire French scientific community in Rousset, southeastern France, on November 6, 2025. (AFP) 
Anubis Baboons eat in their enclosure at the French CNRS’ (National Center for Scientific Research) primatology center where various monkey species are raised for the entire French scientific community in Rousset, southeastern France, on November 6, 2025. (AFP) 
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Baboon Siblings Get Jealous Just Like Human Kids, Scientists Find 

Anubis Baboons eat in their enclosure at the French CNRS’ (National Center for Scientific Research) primatology center where various monkey species are raised for the entire French scientific community in Rousset, southeastern France, on November 6, 2025. (AFP) 
Anubis Baboons eat in their enclosure at the French CNRS’ (National Center for Scientific Research) primatology center where various monkey species are raised for the entire French scientific community in Rousset, southeastern France, on November 6, 2025. (AFP) 

Sibling rivalry isn't just a problem for humans -- young baboons also compete for their mother's attention, scientists said on Wednesday.

The scenario is familiar for many parents: just when they finally get to share a special moment with one of their children, a little brother or sister pops up trying to get noticed.

Axelle Delaunay, an evolutionary biologist at Finland's University of Turku and lead author of a new study, told AFP that jealousy is a "very striking" emotion in humans.

However, it has been little studied among our fellow primates because jealousy is "very complicated to measure", she said.

Female primates usually only have one baby at a time, so "it was generally thought there was no real competition between siblings, because brothers and sisters are different ages and do not necessarily need their mother and her resources at the same time", Delaunay explained.

For the study, a team of researchers observed two troops of wild chacma baboons in Tsaobis Nature Park in central Namibia between August and December 2021.

There were 16 families living in the troops, with a total of 49 young siblings.

Baboons live in societies ruled by women, with the position of power handed down from mother to daughter. Males, meanwhile, leave after puberty.

Like humans, baboon infants have a long developmental period during which they maintain strong bonds with their mother.

The mothers often groom their children -- and have been known to play favorites.

So the scientists spent lots of time watching baboon mothers either resting or grooming their children.

They meticulously noted when another infant interfered with a mother's grooming by biting, slapping, crying out or more gently asking for affection.

What they observed "strikingly mirrors patterns of sibling jealousy reported in humans", according to the study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

The young baboons were more likely to interrupt their mother when she was grooming one of their siblings than when she was just resting.

The scientists also developed an index to show how the mothers played favorites, choosing to groom some kids more than others.

Delaunay pointed out that the displays of sibling jealousy did not appear to offer "many immediate benefits".

Baboon mothers only stopped grooming one of their children because of an outburst from another roughly one-fifth of the time, the scientists found.

And she only then started grooming the jealous child nine percent of the time.