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King Charles III Is Being Treated for Cancer, Will Temporarily Halt Public Duties 

Britain's King Charles leaves the London Clinic after receiving treatment for an enlarged prostate, in London, Britain January 29, 2024. (Reuters)
Britain's King Charles leaves the London Clinic after receiving treatment for an enlarged prostate, in London, Britain January 29, 2024. (Reuters)
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King Charles III Is Being Treated for Cancer, Will Temporarily Halt Public Duties 

Britain's King Charles leaves the London Clinic after receiving treatment for an enlarged prostate, in London, Britain January 29, 2024. (Reuters)
Britain's King Charles leaves the London Clinic after receiving treatment for an enlarged prostate, in London, Britain January 29, 2024. (Reuters)

Britain's King Charles III has been diagnosed with cancer and has begun treatment, Buckingham Palace said Monday. Less than 18 months into his reign, the 75-year-old monarch will suspend public engagements but will continue with state business, and won't be handing over his constitutional roles as head of state.

The palace didn't disclose what form of cancer the king has, but said it's not related to his recent treatment for a benign prostate condition.

The palace said "a separate issue of concern was noted" during Charles' treatment for an enlarged prostate last month, when he spent three nights in a London hospital.

"Diagnostic tests have identified a form of cancer," it said in a statement.

"His Majesty has today commenced a schedule of regular treatments, during which time he has been advised by doctors to postpone public-facing duties," the palace said. "Throughout this period, His Majesty will continue to undertake State business and official paperwork as usual."

The king is being treated as an outpatient, the palace said.

It said Charles, who has generally enjoyed good health, "remains wholly positive about his treatment and looks forward to returning to full public duty as soon as possible."

The palace added that the king "has chosen to share his diagnosis to prevent speculation and in the hope it may assist public understanding for all those around the world who are affected by cancer."

Charles became king in September 2022 when his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, died at the age of 96 after 70 years on the throne.

News of the king's diagnosis comes as his daughter-in-law Kate, Princess of Wales, recovers from abdominal surgery that saw her hospitalized for about two weeks.

Kate is still taking a break from royal duties as she recovers. Her husband, Prince William, who is heir to the throne, also took time off to help look after the couple's three children, but is due to preside over an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle and a charity dinner on Wednesday.

Charles took the throne intending to preside over a slimmer monarchy with fewer senior royals carrying out ceremonial public duties. But with Charles and Kate both temporarily sidelined, Prince Harry self-exiled to California and Prince Andrew largely banished from view because of his friendship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the royal "Firm" risks becoming severely overstretched.

The king personally called both William and Harry — as well as his siblings Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward — to share news of his health.

Harry, who quit royal duties in 2020, has spoken to his father about the diagnosis and "will be traveling to UK to see His Majesty in the coming days," said the office of Harry and his wife, Meghan.

UK political leaders sent messages of support. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak tweeted: "Wishing His Majesty a full and speedy recovery. I have no doubt he’ll be back to full strength in no time and I know the whole country will be wishing him well."

US President Joe Biden, traveling in Las Vegas on Monday, said he had just learned about Charles’s diagnosis and said he hopes to speak with him, "God willing."

"I’m concerned about him," Biden told reporters.

The president later posted on X, formerly known as Twitter: "Navigating a cancer diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship takes hope and absolute courage. Jill and I join the people of the United Kingdom in praying that His Majesty experiences a swift and full recovery."

Charles departed from royal tradition with his openness about his prostate condition. For centuries Britain's royal family remained tight-lipped about health matters.

When UK monarchs had real power, news of illness was withheld for fear it might weaken their authority. The habit of secrecy lingered after royals became constitutional figureheads.

The British public wasn’t told that Charles’ grandfather, King George VI, had lung cancer before his death in February 1952 at the age of 56, and some historians have claimed that the king himself wasn’t told he was terminally ill.

In the final years of Elizabeth's life, the public was told only that the queen was suffering from "mobility issues." The cause of her death was listed on the death certificate simply as "old age."

Pat Price, founder of the Catch Up With Cancer campaign, said millions shared the "collective concern" for the king's health.

"The king’s openness about his battle with cancer is a powerful reminder that one in two of us may face cancer at some point in our lives," Price said.

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Varieties

More Travel Chaos to Hit Europe as Cold Snap Brings More Snow

People walk along the Baltic Sea shore covered in a thick blanket of snow, in Stralsund, Germany, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (Stefan Sauer/dpa via AP)
People walk along the Baltic Sea shore covered in a thick blanket of snow, in Stralsund, Germany, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (Stefan Sauer/dpa via AP)
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More Travel Chaos to Hit Europe as Cold Snap Brings More Snow

People walk along the Baltic Sea shore covered in a thick blanket of snow, in Stralsund, Germany, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (Stefan Sauer/dpa via AP)
People walk along the Baltic Sea shore covered in a thick blanket of snow, in Stralsund, Germany, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (Stefan Sauer/dpa via AP)

More flights will be cancelled, trains will run late and roads will be blocked by snow across Europe in coming days as a cold snap is expected to worsen, bringing even more heavy snowfall after several days of travel disruption.

Authorities in the Netherlands told people to plan to stay at home if at all possible on Wednesday, with a fresh blizzard expected to arrive overnight.

French Transportation Minister Philippe Tabarot said on Tuesday that airlines had already been ordered to cancel at least 40% of flights at Paris's main Charles de Gaulle airport the following morning, ‌and a quarter ‌of flights at smaller Orly.

Public transportation in the Paris ‌region ⁠will probably also be ‌disrupted by the snow, he added.

At Amsterdam's Schiphol, where more than 400 flights were cancelled on Tuesday, authorities told travelers whose flights had been called off to stay away from the airport to prevent overcrowding.

"We haven't experienced such extreme weather conditions in years," Dutch airline KLM's spokesperson Anoesjka Aspeslagh said, as winter weather crippled traffic at one of Europe's main transit hubs for a fifth day.

A BIRTHDAY IN TRANSIT

Stranded at Schiphol, Simiao Sun said she feared she'd spend her 40th birthday in transit. ⁠She had been told she would have to wait three days for a rescheduled flight to Beijing.

"My child would miss ‌school and we would both miss work, so I'm queuing ‍here...hoping to get a slightly earlier ‍flight."

KLM said it was offering alternative flights where possible and doing everything to help travelers, ‍but it was "overwhelmed with inquiries".

On top of that, all domestic rail services in the Netherlands were suspended early on Tuesday after an IT outage hit the rail network. Trains began running in parts of the country after 0900 GMT, but problems persisted around Amsterdam, with high-speed Eurostar services from Amsterdam to Paris either cancelled or late.

Roads in France were gradually clearing on Tuesday after snow caused severe accidents all over the country, killing at least five people, according to ⁠BFMTV news station. Traffic in the Paris area hit a record 1,000 kilometers of jams on Monday evening.

SNOW FALLS OVER LARGE PARTS OF GERMANY AND FRANCE

In Germany, temperatures fell well below minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) in the south and east early on Tuesday. Much of the country was covered in snow.

In Britain, the Meteorological Office said winter weather hazards could continue throughout the week for most of the country. Temperatures overnight to Tuesday had fallen as low as -12.5 degrees Celsius in Marham, Norfolk, in east England, marking the coldest night of the winter so far.

Heavy snow and rain have also caused havoc across the Western Balkans, closing roads, cutting power and causing rivers to flood. A woman died in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo on Monday after a ‌tree overburdened with wet snow fell on her.

Varieties

Study: Climate-driven Tree Deaths Speeding Up in Australia

New research show tree mortality is rising across Australia's forest as the climate warms. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File
New research show tree mortality is rising across Australia's forest as the climate warms. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File
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Study: Climate-driven Tree Deaths Speeding Up in Australia

New research show tree mortality is rising across Australia's forest as the climate warms. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File
New research show tree mortality is rising across Australia's forest as the climate warms. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File

Australia's forests are losing trees more rapidly as the climate warms, a new study examining decades of data said Tuesday, warning the trend was likely a "widespread phenomenon".

The research used forest inventory data from 2,700 plots across the country, ranging from cool moist forests to dry savanna.

It excluded areas affected by logging, clearance or fires to examine how "background tree mortality" has changed in recent decades.

"What we found is that the mortality rate has consistently increased over time, in all of the different forest types," said Belinda Medlyn, a professor at Western Sydney University's Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment.

"And this increase is very likely caused by the increase in temperature," she told AFP.

The world has warmed by an average of nearly 1.2 degrees Celsius since the pre-industrial era. Most of this warming has occurred in the last 50 years.

The rate at which trees die off in a forest can vary in response to different types of disturbances, or as forests grow thicker and there is greater competition for resources.

But the research, published in the Nature Plants journal, excluded areas affected by fires or clearing, and also examined the stand basal area -- the sum of the cross-sectional areas of all trees in an area.

"The (mortality) trend over time remains even after we correct for basal area," explained Medlyn, who led the research.

The scale of the increase varied across the four different biomes surveyed, with the sharpest rise in tropical savannas.

There, the number of trees dying on average increased by 3.2 percent a year, from close to 15 per 1,000 in 1996, to nearly double that number by 2017.

The research found that the deaths were not being matched by tree growth, so forest stock overall is declining.

That makes it "very likely that the overall carbon storage capacity in the forests is declining over time", said Medlyn.

And given the trend was observed across four ecosystems -- tropical savanna, cool temperate forest, warm temperate forest and tropical rainforest -- it is likely to be "a widespread phenomenon, not just an Australian thing", she added.

The rising mortality rate tracks warming and drying linked to climate change, and the study found the fastest rise in hotter, dryer regions.

The research comes months after a study found Australia's tropical rainforests were among the first in the world to start emitting more carbon dioxide than they absorb.

Taken together, the findings paint a worrying picture of our continued ability to rely on forests to absorb our emissions.

"Forests globally currently sequester about one-third of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions," said Medlyn.

"Our study suggests their capacity to act as buffer will decline over time."

Varieties

South Korea’s Lee Snaps Xi Selfie with Chinese ‘Backdoor’ Phone

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung (L) and his wife, Kim Hea Kyung (2nd from L), take a selfie with Chinese President Xi Jinping (2nd from R) and his wife, Peng Liyuan, by using a Xiaomi smartphone following a state dinner for the South Korean leader in Beijing, China, 05 January 2026. (EPA/Yonhap)
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung (L) and his wife, Kim Hea Kyung (2nd from L), take a selfie with Chinese President Xi Jinping (2nd from R) and his wife, Peng Liyuan, by using a Xiaomi smartphone following a state dinner for the South Korean leader in Beijing, China, 05 January 2026. (EPA/Yonhap)
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South Korea’s Lee Snaps Xi Selfie with Chinese ‘Backdoor’ Phone

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung (L) and his wife, Kim Hea Kyung (2nd from L), take a selfie with Chinese President Xi Jinping (2nd from R) and his wife, Peng Liyuan, by using a Xiaomi smartphone following a state dinner for the South Korean leader in Beijing, China, 05 January 2026. (EPA/Yonhap)
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung (L) and his wife, Kim Hea Kyung (2nd from L), take a selfie with Chinese President Xi Jinping (2nd from R) and his wife, Peng Liyuan, by using a Xiaomi smartphone following a state dinner for the South Korean leader in Beijing, China, 05 January 2026. (EPA/Yonhap)

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung snapped a selfie with Xi Jinping using a smartphone gifted to him by the Chinese leader, who had joked at their last meeting that the device might be capable of spying.

Lee posted a selfie of himself, Xi and their wives on social media platform X on Monday during a visit to Beijing.

"A selfie with President Xi Jinping and his wife, taken with the Xiaomi I received as a gift in Gyeongju," Lee wrote.

"Thanks to them, I got the shot of a lifetime," he said.

"I will communicate more frequently and collaborate more closely going forward."

In the selfie, all four first families are seen smiling.

Lee's office also posted a short YouTube video of the scene, with Xi complimenting the South Korean leader's photo skills.

The Xiaomi handset made headlines in November when Xi cracked a joke to Lee on the sidelines of an APEC summit in South Korea.

When Lee asked if the communication line on the device was secure, the Chinese leader urged him to "check if there is a backdoor" -- referring to pre-installed software that could allow third-party monitoring.

The banter was a rare display of humor from the Chinese leader, who is not often seen making jokes, let alone about espionage.

The South Korean President has said Xi was "unexpectedly quite good at making jokes".

During their ninety-minute summit on Monday, Xi urged Lee to join Beijing in making the "right strategic choices" in a world that is "becoming more complex and turbulent".

Lee's visit to China followed a US military operation in Caracas that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and brought him to New York to face narco-trafficking charges -- a raid condemned by Beijing and Pyongyang.

Lee's selfie post sparked heavy interest online and was shared more than 3,400 times in the first few hours.

One user quipped: "Sir, do you know Nicolas Maduro used the same phone?"

The South Korean leader, who took office in June following the impeachment and removal of his predecessor over a martial law declaration, has sought to improve ties with China after a years-long diplomatic deep freeze.