Prince Harry Challenges UK Government's Decision to Strip Him of Security Detail When He Moved to US

FILE - Britain's Prince Harry arrives in the gardens of Buckingham Palace in London, Jan. 16, 2020. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)
FILE - Britain's Prince Harry arrives in the gardens of Buckingham Palace in London, Jan. 16, 2020. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)
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Prince Harry Challenges UK Government's Decision to Strip Him of Security Detail When He Moved to US

FILE - Britain's Prince Harry arrives in the gardens of Buckingham Palace in London, Jan. 16, 2020. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)
FILE - Britain's Prince Harry arrives in the gardens of Buckingham Palace in London, Jan. 16, 2020. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)

Prince Harry is challenging on Tuesday the British government’s decision to strip him of his security detail after he gave up his status as a working member of the royal family and moved to the United States.
The Duke of Sussex said he wants protection when he visits home and claimed it's partly because an aggressive press jeopardizes his safety and that of his family.
The three-day hearing scheduled to begin in London’s High Court is the latest in a string of Harry's legal cases that have kept London judges busy as he takes on the UK government and the British tabloid media. It was not clear if he would attend Tuesday's hearing.
Harry failed to persuade a different judge earlier this year that he should be able to privately pay for London’s police force to guard him when he comes to town. A judge denied that offer after a government lawyer argued that officers shouldn't be used as “private bodyguards for the wealthy.”
Harry, the youngest son of King Charles III, said he did not feel safe bringing his wife, former actor Meghan Markle, and their two young children back to Britain and was concerned about his own safety after being chased by paparazzi following a London charity event.
Harry’s animosity toward the press dates back to the death of his mother Princess Diana, who died in a car wreck as her driver tried to outrun aggressive photographers in Paris. Harry, whose wife is mixed-raced, cited what he said were racist attitudes and unbearable intrusions of the British media in his decision to leave the United Kingdom.
The 39-year-old prince is challenging the decision by the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures to provide his security on a “case by case” basis after moving in 2020 to Canada and then California, where he and his family now reside.
He said the committee unfairly nixed his security request without hearing from him personally and did not disclose the makeup of the panel, which he later learned included royal family staff. He said Edward Young, the assistant private secretary to the late Queen Elizabeth II, should not have been on the committee because of “significant tensions” between the two men.
The Home Office has argued that any tensions between Harry and the royal household staff was irrelevant and that the committee was entitled to its decision because he had relinquished his role as a working member of the family.
The case is one of five that Harry has pending in the High Court.
The four other lawsuits involve Britain's best-known tabloids, including a case that alleges the publisher of the Daily Mail libeled him when it ran a story suggesting he had tried to hide his efforts to continue receiving government-funded security. A ruling is expected in that case Friday.
Three other lawsuits allege that journalists at the Mail, the Daily Mirror, and The Sun used unlawful means, such as deception, phone hacking or hiring private investigators to dig up dirt about him.



China to Hold Nationwide Survey on Population Changes

Chinese tourists visit the Mutianyu Great Wall in Beijing, China, Tuesday, Oct 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim)
Chinese tourists visit the Mutianyu Great Wall in Beijing, China, Tuesday, Oct 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim)
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China to Hold Nationwide Survey on Population Changes

Chinese tourists visit the Mutianyu Great Wall in Beijing, China, Tuesday, Oct 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim)
Chinese tourists visit the Mutianyu Great Wall in Beijing, China, Tuesday, Oct 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim)

China's National Bureau of Statistics said it will conduct a nationwide sample survey from Thursday to "accurately" monitor population changes and better plan economic and social policies, as authorities struggle to boost a fall in births.
The survey, which will run until Nov. 30, comes after the bureau conducted a similar poll in 2023.
Beijing is urgently trying a variety of measures to incentivize young couples to have children after China posted a second consecutive year of population decline in 2023, Reuters reported.
Rapid aging has become a growing concern for policymakers, with China's cohort of those aged 60 and older expected to rise at least 40% to more than 400 million by 2035, equal to the populations of Britain and the United States combined.
The survey will focus on urban and rural areas to "accurately and timely monitor and reflect the development and changes in population" and help formulate "national economic and social development plans," the bureau said in a statement.
Local governments and personnel will be held accountable for any "illegal acts" during survey work, and all sectors of society must "actively support and cooperate" with the survey, it said.
Population development has often been linked to the strength and "rejuvenation" of China in state media, amid the declining birth rate and widespread concerns by citizens on the difficulties of raising children.
Chinese health officials said in September that they would focus more efforts on advocating marriage and childbirth at appropriate ages and called for shared parenting responsibilities to guide young people towards "positive perspectives on marriage, childbirth and family.”
Many young Chinese are opting to remain childless due to high childcare costs, an unwillingness to marry, or put their careers on hold in a traditional society where women are still seen as the main care-givers and where gender discrimination remains rife.
The number of marriages in the first half of this year fell to its lowest level since 2013, official data showed.
China last conducted its once-in-a-decade census of the entire population in November 2020, which showed the population grew at the slowest pace since the first modern survey in the 1950s.