King Charles Hands Military Title to Son William in Rare Joint Appearance

 Britain's King Charles III officially hands over the role of Colonel-in-Chief of the Army Air Corps to Prince William, The Prince of Wales in front of an Apache helicopter at the Army Aviation Center in Middle Wallop, England, Monday, May 13, 2024. (AP)
Britain's King Charles III officially hands over the role of Colonel-in-Chief of the Army Air Corps to Prince William, The Prince of Wales in front of an Apache helicopter at the Army Aviation Center in Middle Wallop, England, Monday, May 13, 2024. (AP)
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King Charles Hands Military Title to Son William in Rare Joint Appearance

 Britain's King Charles III officially hands over the role of Colonel-in-Chief of the Army Air Corps to Prince William, The Prince of Wales in front of an Apache helicopter at the Army Aviation Center in Middle Wallop, England, Monday, May 13, 2024. (AP)
Britain's King Charles III officially hands over the role of Colonel-in-Chief of the Army Air Corps to Prince William, The Prince of Wales in front of an Apache helicopter at the Army Aviation Center in Middle Wallop, England, Monday, May 13, 2024. (AP)

Britain's King Charles handed over a senior military role to his son Prince William at a ceremony on Monday, marking a rare joint appearance for the pair as the king steps up his return to public duties after his cancer diagnosis.

Charles presented William with the title of Colonel-in-Chief of the Army Air Corps, a position the 75-year-old monarch held for 32 years, in front of an Apache helicopter, and watched by service personnel at the Army Flying Museum in southern England.

"He's a very good pilot indeed," Charles said of his son, a former helicopter search and rescue pilot for Britain's Royal Air Force.

The visit was Charles' latest engagement since he returned to work at the end of April, almost three months after Buckingham Palace announced he was being treated for an unspecified type of cancer.

William, 41, had also taken a break from official duties for several weeks in March and April this year, choosing to spend time with and care for his wife after she revealed she was undergoing preventative chemotherapy for cancer.

He said on Friday she was "doing well".

At the handover ceremony, Charles said he was saying goodbye with "sadness", but the Army Air Corps would go from "strength to strength" under his son.

"Look after yourselves and I can't tell you how proud it has made me to have been involved with you all this time," Charles said.

The title transfer was announced last August after Charles' accession to the throne. William spent time with the Corps, viewing training, equipment and hearing from soldiers later on Monday.



Berliners Jump into the Spree River to Show It’s Clean Enough for Swimming 

People swim in the river Spree to demand the lift of the hundred years old swimming ban at the river in front of the Berlin Cathedral and the TV Tower in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (AP)
People swim in the river Spree to demand the lift of the hundred years old swimming ban at the river in front of the Berlin Cathedral and the TV Tower in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (AP)
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Berliners Jump into the Spree River to Show It’s Clean Enough for Swimming 

People swim in the river Spree to demand the lift of the hundred years old swimming ban at the river in front of the Berlin Cathedral and the TV Tower in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (AP)
People swim in the river Spree to demand the lift of the hundred years old swimming ban at the river in front of the Berlin Cathedral and the TV Tower in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (AP)

A century after the city of Berlin banned swimming in the Spree River because it was so polluted it could make people sick, there's a push by swimmers to get back into the water.

Around 200 people jumped into the slow-moving, greenish water Tuesday to show that it's not only clean enough, but also lots of fun to splash and swim in the Mitte neighborhood along the world-famous Museum Island.

A group calling itself Fluss Bad Berlin, or River Pool Berlin, has been lobbying for years to open the meandering river for swimmers again.

“For 100 years now, people have not been allowed to swim in the inner-city Spree and we no longer think this is justified, because we can show that the water quality is usually good enough to go swimming during the season,” said Jan Edler, who is on the board of Fluss Bad Berlin and helped organize Tuesday's swim-in.

To circumvent the ban, the group registered their collective swim event as an official protest.

Standing on a little staircase that leads down to the Spree canal, which flows around the southern side of the island, Edler stressed that “we want the people to use the Spree for recreation again.”

He pointed to the fact that the river has been cleaned up thoroughly, and that the water quality has improved in the last decade and is constantly being monitored.

Even city officials in the central Mitte district of Berlin say they'd be interested in introducing river swimming again in 2026.

“There are still many things that need to be clarified, but I am optimistic that it can succeed,” district city councilor Ephraim Gothe told German news agency dpa recently.

Supporters of lifting the swimming ban also point at Paris, where the Seine River was opened up for swimmers for the Olympic Games last year and will be opened this summer for Parisians. Swimming there had been banned since 1923.

In Vienna, too, water lovers can splash into the Danube River canal, in the Swiss city of Basel they can bathe in the Rhine, and in Amsterdam there are some designated areas where people can plunge into the canals.

Only in Berlin, swimming has been continuously prohibited in the Spree since May 1925, when the German capital closed all traditional river pools because the water was deemed too toxic. Some of those pools weren't only used for recreational swimming, but were a place for poor people to wash themselves if they didn't have bathrooms at home.

These days, the water is clean on most days, except when there's heavy rain, which leads to some water pollution.

Allowing swimmers to dive into the river would also mean loosening the historical monument protection on some parts of the riverbanks to install easy access ways to the water and places for lifeguards.

Another problem is the busy boat traffic on the Spree that could endanger swimmers. However, for the time being, the Fluss Bad Berlin group only wants to open up nearly 2-kilometer-long (just over a mile-long) canal where there's no boat traffic.

For what it's worth, the German capital, a city of 3.9 million, could definitely need more places where people can cool off in the summer as regular outdoor pools tend to be hopelessly overcrowded on hot summer days.

“The cities are getting hotter,” Edler said. “It's also a question of environmental justice to create offers for people who just can’t make it out of the city when it’s so hot and can enjoy themselves in the countryside.”