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Varieties

Grievances and Forgiveness Were Both on Display in Prince Harry’s Raw TV Interview

Britain's Prince Harry departs after attending court for his appeal against the rejection of his legal challenge to the British government's decision to take away his police protection when he is in Britain, outside the High Court in London, Britain, April 9, 2025. (Reuters)
Britain's Prince Harry departs after attending court for his appeal against the rejection of his legal challenge to the British government's decision to take away his police protection when he is in Britain, outside the High Court in London, Britain, April 9, 2025. (Reuters)
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Grievances and Forgiveness Were Both on Display in Prince Harry’s Raw TV Interview

Britain's Prince Harry departs after attending court for his appeal against the rejection of his legal challenge to the British government's decision to take away his police protection when he is in Britain, outside the High Court in London, Britain, April 9, 2025. (Reuters)
Britain's Prince Harry departs after attending court for his appeal against the rejection of his legal challenge to the British government's decision to take away his police protection when he is in Britain, outside the High Court in London, Britain, April 9, 2025. (Reuters)

The rift between Prince Harry and his family has burst into the open again with the prince’s raw television interview after losing a court case over his security.

In a long and at times emotional conversation, the 40-year-old prince said he wants reconciliation, while re-airing grievances against the royal family, the UK government and the media.

Here are key takeaways from Friday’s BBC interview:

A security feud has deepened the royal rift Harry said his father, King Charles III, won’t speak to him because of “this security stuff” – a legal wrangle over protection for the prince when he is in Britain.

“This, at the heart of it, is a family dispute,” he said.

Harry has been estranged from his family since he and his wife Meghan quit royal duties in 2020 and moved to the United States, alleging hostility and racist attitudes by the press and royal establishment. Harry’s tell-all 2023 memoir “Spare,” stuffed with private details and embarrassing revelations, made things worse.

But Harry said what’s souring the relationship now is a decision to remove his police protection detail after he stopped being a working royal. On Friday the Court of Appeal in London rejected Harry’s bid to restore the protection, saying a government committee was justified in deciding that security should be assessed on a case-by-case basis whenever Harry visits the UK.

Harry blamed the palace, alleging that the decision to withdraw his security had been made at the direction of royal officials, who sit on the committee alongside police and government representatives. He said they were “knowingly putting me and my family in harm’s way,” hoping that the sense of threat “would force us to come back.”

He suggested his father was part of the problem, saying he’d asked the king “to step out of the way and let the experts do their job.”

Harry highlighted health concerns about the king King Charles, 76, has been treated for an undisclosed cancer for more than a year. Buckingham Palace has given infrequent updates, and has not disclosed what form of cancer the king has.

Harry, who has met his father only once, briefly, since his diagnosis early last year, said “I don’t know how much longer my father has.”

He held out little hope of another meeting soon.

“The only time I come back to the UK, is, sadly, for funerals or court cases,” he said.

After taking several months off last year, Charles has returned to a full slate of public duties. This week he told a reception for cancer charities that being diagnosed was “a daunting and at times frightening experience.” He added: “I can vouch for the fact that it can also be an experience that brings into sharp focus the very best of humanity.”

Harry fears for his life and safety Harry has well-founded concerns for the safety of himself and his family.

He is fifth in line to the throne, behind his brother William and William’s three children. He spent 10 years in the British army, serving two tours of duty in Afghanistan.

Harry said that before 2020 he was placed in the highest tier of at-risk royals, alongside his late grandmother Queen Elizabeth II.

Since then, he has been stripped of taxpayer-funded police protection, and also denied permission to pay for it himself, leaving private security his only option.

He said that is not as good as police protection, which is provided for life to “people who leave public office,” such as former prime ministers.

“I can never leave the royal family,” he said. “I was born into those risks, and they've only increased over time.”

He claimed that “some people want history to repeat itself,” an apparent reference to the death of his mother Princess Diana. She was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997 while being pursued by paparazzi.

He worries his children will lose part of their heritage Harry, Meghan and their children Archie, 5, and 3-year-old Lilibet, currently live in California, and Harry said he “can’t see a world in which I would be bringing my wife and children back to the UK.”

The prince said he loves Britain and “it’s really quite sad that I won’t be able to show my children my homeland.”

Harry claimed that he and his family are endangered when visiting Britain because of hostility aimed at him and Meghan on social media and through relentless hounding by news media.

Harry wants reconciliation with his family – but it may not be imminent Harry’s explosive memoir “Spare” scattered bitterness and blame at Charles, Queen Camilla – Harry’s stepmother – and his elder brother William.

In the interview, he said he could forgive his family, and even the British press that he reviles and has repeatedly sued.

“I would love reconciliation with my family. There’s no point in continuing to fight anymore,” Harry said.

Historian Anthony Seldon said Harry had chosen his words deliberately to signal he “wants to make a new start.”

“There will be no more spiteful books,” Seldon told Sky News. “He has signaled he wants to be back in a way that needs to be worked out.”

But Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty Magazine, said it's hard to see how reconciliation can happen.

“He clearly feels aggrieved at the outcome of this legal action, but there is a great deal to be gained by maintaining a dignified silence,” Little said. “Sadly, as we know from past events, this isn’t Harry’s way of doing things.”

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Varieties

Surprise Shark Caught on Camera for 1st Time in Antarctica’s Near-freezing Deep

In this image made from video and released by the University of Western Australia, a sleeper shark swims into the spotlight of a video camera in Antarctica in January 2025. (Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre, Inkfish, Kelpie Geoscience via AP)
In this image made from video and released by the University of Western Australia, a sleeper shark swims into the spotlight of a video camera in Antarctica in January 2025. (Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre, Inkfish, Kelpie Geoscience via AP)
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Surprise Shark Caught on Camera for 1st Time in Antarctica’s Near-freezing Deep

In this image made from video and released by the University of Western Australia, a sleeper shark swims into the spotlight of a video camera in Antarctica in January 2025. (Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre, Inkfish, Kelpie Geoscience via AP)
In this image made from video and released by the University of Western Australia, a sleeper shark swims into the spotlight of a video camera in Antarctica in January 2025. (Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre, Inkfish, Kelpie Geoscience via AP)

An ungainly barrel of a shark cruising languidly over a barren seabed far too deep for the sun’s rays to illuminate was an unexpected sight.

Many experts had thought sharks didn’t exist in the frigid waters of Antarctica before this sleeper shark lumbered warily and briefly into the spotlight of a video camera, researcher Alan Jamieson said this week. The shark, filmed in January 2025, was a substantial specimen with an estimated length of between 3 and 4 meters (10 and 13 feet).

“We went down there not expecting to see sharks because there’s a general rule of thumb that you don’t get sharks in Antarctica,” Jamieson said.

“And it’s not even a little one either. It’s a hunk of a shark. These things are tanks,” he added.

The camera operated by the Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre, which investigates life in the deepest parts of the world’s oceans, was positioned off the South Shetland Islands near the Antarctic Peninsula. That is well inside the boundaries of the Antarctic Ocean, also known as the Southern Ocean, which is defined as below the 60-degree south latitude line.

The center on Wednesday gave The Associated Press permission to publish the images.
The shark was 490 meters (1,608 feet) deep where the water temperature was a near-freezing 1.27 degrees Celsius (34.29 degrees Fahrenheit).

A skate appears in frame motionless on the seabed and seemingly unperturbed by the passing shark. The skate, a shark relative that looks like a stingray, was no surprise since scientists already knew their range extended that far south.

Jamieson, who is the founding director of the University of Western Australia-based research center, said he could find no record of another shark found in the Antarctic Ocean.

Peter Kyne, a Charles Darwin University conservation biologist independent of the research center, agreed that a shark had never before been recorded so far south.

Climate change and warming oceans could potentially be driving sharks to the Southern Hemisphere’s colder waters, but there was limited data on range changes near Antarctica because of the region’s remoteness, Kyne said.

The slow-moving sleeper sharks could have long been in Antarctica without anyone noticing, he said.

“This is great. The shark was in the right place, the camera was in the right place and they got this great footage,” Kyne said. “It’s quite significant.”

The sleeper shark population in the Antarctic Ocean was likely sparse and difficult for humans to detect, Jamieson said.

The photographed shark was maintaining a depth of around 500 meters (1,640 feet) along a seabed that sloped into much deeper water. The shark maintained that depth because that was the warmest layer of several water layers stacked upon each other to the surface, Jamieson said.

The Antarctic Ocean is heavily layered, or stratified, to a depth of around 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) because of conflicting properties including colder, denser water from below not readily mixing with fresh water running off melting ice from above.

Jamieson expects other Antarctic sharks live at the same depth, feeding on the carcasses of whales, giant squids and other marine creatures that die and sink to the bottom.

There are few research cameras positioned at that specific depth in Antarctic waters.

Those that are can only operate during the Southern Hemisphere summer months, from December through February.

“The other 75% of the year, no one’s looking at all. And so this is why, I think, we occasionally come across these surprises,” Jamieson said.

Varieties

17th Century Wreck Reappears from Stockholm Deep

The remains of a 17th century shipwreck is pictured after resurfacing in Stockholm, Sweden, on February 17, 2026. (Photo by Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP)
The remains of a 17th century shipwreck is pictured after resurfacing in Stockholm, Sweden, on February 17, 2026. (Photo by Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP)
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17th Century Wreck Reappears from Stockholm Deep

The remains of a 17th century shipwreck is pictured after resurfacing in Stockholm, Sweden, on February 17, 2026. (Photo by Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP)
The remains of a 17th century shipwreck is pictured after resurfacing in Stockholm, Sweden, on February 17, 2026. (Photo by Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP)

A 17th century Swedish Navy shipwreck buried underwater in central Stockholm for 400 years has suddenly become visible due to unusually low Baltic Sea levels.

The wooden planks of the ship's well-preserved hull have since early February been peeking out above the surface of the water off the island of Kastellholmen, providing a clear picture of its skeleton.

"We have a shipwreck here, which was sunk on purpose by the Swedish Navy," Jim Hansson, a marine archeologist at Stockholm's Vrak - Museum of Wrecks, told AFP.

Hansson said experts believe that after serving in the navy, the ship was sunk around 1640 to use as a foundation for a new bridge to the island of Kastellholmen.

Archeologists have yet to identify the exact ship, as it is one of five similar wrecks lined up in the same area to form the bridge, all dating from the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

"This is a solution, instead of using new wood you can use the hull itself, which is oak" to build the bridge, Hansson said.

"We don't have shipworm here in the Baltic that eats the wood, so it lasts, as you see, for 400 years," he said, standing in front of the wreck.

Parts of the ship had already broken the surface in 2013, but never before has it been as visible as it is now, as the waters of the Baltic Sea reach their lowest level in about 100 years, according to the archaeologist.

"There has been a really long period of high pressure here around our area in the Nordics. So the water from the Baltic has been pushed out to the North Sea and the Atlantic," Hansson explained.

A research program dubbed "the Lost Navy" is underway to identify and precisely date the large number of Swedish naval shipwrecks lying on the bottom of the Baltic.

Varieties

China Has Slashed Air Pollution, but the ‘War’ Isn’t Over 

This picture taken on February 11, 2026 shows pedestrians walking along an overpass as traffic snarls in Beijing. (AFP)
This picture taken on February 11, 2026 shows pedestrians walking along an overpass as traffic snarls in Beijing. (AFP)
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China Has Slashed Air Pollution, but the ‘War’ Isn’t Over 

This picture taken on February 11, 2026 shows pedestrians walking along an overpass as traffic snarls in Beijing. (AFP)
This picture taken on February 11, 2026 shows pedestrians walking along an overpass as traffic snarls in Beijing. (AFP)

Fifteen years ago, Beijing's Liangma riverbanks would have been smog-choked and deserted in winter, but these days they are dotted with families and exercising pensioners most mornings.

The turnaround is the result of a years-long campaign that threw China's state power behind policies like moving factories and electrifying vehicles, to improve some of the world's worst air quality.

Pollution levels in many Chinese cities still top the World Health Organization's (WHO) limits, but they have fallen dramatically since the "airpocalypse" days of the past.

"It used to be really bad," said Zhao, 83, soaking up the sun by the river with friends.

"Back then when there was smog, I wouldn't come out," she told AFP, declining to give her full name.

These days though, the air is "very fresh".

Since 2013, levels of PM2.5 -- small particulate that can enter the lungs and bloodstream -- have fallen 69.8 percent, Beijing municipality said in January.

Particulate pollution fell 41 percent nationwide in the decade from 2014, and average life expectancy has increased 1.8 years, according to the University of Chicago's Air Quality Life Index (AQLI).

China's rapid development and heavy coal use saw air quality decline dramatically by the 2000s, especially when cold winter weather trapped pollutants close to the ground.

There were early attempts to tackle the issue, including installing desulphurization technology at coal power plants, while factory shutdowns and traffic control improved the air quality for events like the 2008 Olympics.

But the impact was short-lived, and the problem worsened.

- Action plan -

Public awareness grew, heightened by factors like the US embassy in Beijing making monitoring data public.

By 2013, several international schools had installed giant inflatable domes around sport facilities to protect students.

That year, multiple episodes of prolonged haze shrouded Chinese cities, with one in October bringing northeastern Harbin to a standstill for days as PM2.5 levels hit 40 times the WHO's then-recommended standard.

The phrase "I'm holding your hand, but I can't see your face" took off online.

Later that year, an eight-year-old became the country's youngest lung cancer patient, with doctors directly blaming pollution.

As concerns mounted, China's ruling Communist Party released a ten-point action plan, declaring "a war against pollution".

It led to expanded monitoring, improved factory technology and the closure or relocation of coal plants and mines.

In big cities, vehicles were restricted and the groundwork was laid for widespread electrification.

For the first time, "quantitative air quality improvement goals for key regions within a clear time limit" were set, a 2016 study noted.

These targets were "the most important measure", said Bluetech Clean Air Alliance director Tonny Xie, whose non-profit worked with the government on the plan.

"At that time, there were a lot of debates about whether we can achieve it, because (they were) very ambitious," he told AFP.

The policy targeted several key regions, where PM2.5 levels fell rapidly between 2013 and 2017, and the approach was expanded nationwide afterwards.

"Everybody, I think, would agree that this is a miracle that was achieved in China," Xie said.

China's success is "entirely" responsible for a decline in global pollution since 2014, AQLI said last summer.

- 'Low-hanging fruits' gone -

Still, in much of China the air remains dangerous to breathe by WHO standards.

This winter, Chinese cities, including financial hub Shanghai, were regularly among the world's twenty most polluted on monitoring site IQAir.

Linda Li, a running coach who has lived in both Beijing and Shanghai, said air quality has improved, but she still loses up to seven running days to pollution in a good month.

A top environment official last year said China aimed to "basically eliminate severe air pollution by 2025", but the government did not respond when AFP asked if that goal had been met.

Official 2025 data found nationwide average PM2.5 concentrations decreased 4.4 percent on-year.

Eighty-eight percent of days featured "good" air quality.

However, China's current definition of "good" is PM2.5 levels of under 35 micrograms per cubic meter, significantly higher than the WHO's recommended five micrograms.

China wants to tighten the standard to 25 by 2035.

The last five years have also seen pollution reduction slow.

The "low-hanging fruits" are gone, said Chengcheng Qiu from the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

Qiu's research suggests pollution is shifting west as heavy industry relocates to regions like Xinjiang, and that some cities in China have seen double-digit percentage increases in PM2.5 in the last five years.

"They can't just stop all industrial production. They need to find cleaner ways to produce the output," Qiu said.

There is hope for that, given China's status as a renewable energy powerhouse, with coal generation falling in 2025.

"Cleaner air ultimately rests on one clear direction," said Qiu.

"Move beyond fossil fuels and let clean energy power the next stage of development."