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UK's Andrew in Freefall, Stripped of Queen's Protection

The death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022 left Andrew exposed, as he hurtled towards his downfall. JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP/File
The death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022 left Andrew exposed, as he hurtled towards his downfall. JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP/File
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UK's Andrew in Freefall, Stripped of Queen's Protection

The death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022 left Andrew exposed, as he hurtled towards his downfall. JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP/File
The death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022 left Andrew exposed, as he hurtled towards his downfall. JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP/File

For the longest time Andrew was shielded by Queen Elizabeth II's steadfast protection. But her death in 2022 left him exposed, as he hurtled towards his downfall.

Rumors had long swirled around the questionable behavior of the 65-year-old royal but, basking in the queen's favor, he emerged bruised though not down-and-out from each lurid, headline-hitting scandal over the years, AFP said.

After the disastrous 2019 television interview in which he sought and failed to explain his ties to US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Andrew was forced to give up his HRH title, and banished from life as a working royal.

But he kept the rich trappings afforded by royal life, including his coveted title as Duke of York, and his home in the luxury 30-room mansion Royal Lodge nestled on the secluded Windsor estate, for which he paid only a token rent.

"People complained about him for years and nothing was done. I think also she (the queen) just had a complete blind spot about him," said biographer Andrew Lownie.

It was the queen who bestowed on Andrew and his then-new wife Sarah Ferguson the title of Duke and Duchess of York -- a title steeped in history which once belonged to Elizabeth II's beloved father, George VI, before he ascended to the throne.

'Deep bond'

It was just one of the signs of the strong ties between Elizabeth and Andrew, her third child after King Charles III and Princess Anne.

"The queen was deeply fond of Andrew. They really had a deep bond," said royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams.

But the explosive revelations in the posthumous memoir of Epstein victim, Virginia Giuffre, in which she reiterated in shocking detail allegations that she was trafficked to have sex with Andrew three times, opened the floodgates to further outrage.

And the queen was no longer around to protect him.

Under pressure from his older brother, Andrew agreed to relinquish his cherished title as Duke of York, as well as the prestigious Order of the Garter this month.

On Thursday, the king went even further, moving to strip his younger brother of all his titles, and ousting him from his home of two decades on the Windsor estate.

Andrew "lost his protector" when Elizabeth died in 2022 and the king should have been "far more ruthless" sooner, said Lownie.

Charles is almost 12 years older than Andrew, and the two brothers have never been close.

But it seems that Prince William, Charles's oldest son and the heir to the throne, has been leading the charge.

UK media have reported that once William succeeds his father he plans to deepen Andrew's banishment, even forbidding him from attending his coronation.

Moves to oust Andrew from Royal Lodge have gathered pace in the past week, given new urgency by the pending move of William, and his wife Kate and three young children, into a new home not far away from the lodge on the Windsor estate.

Andrew had dug his heels in, reportedly demanding to move into Frogmore Cottage, the former home of his nephew Prince Harry and his wife Meghan.

He was also reportedly demanding that Ferguson, his ex-wife with whom he shared the lodge for two decades, be allowed to move into Adelaide Cottage, once it is vacated by William and his family.

The BBC reported this week that Andrew hosted Epstein, his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell -- imprisoned for trafficking -- and former US film producer Harvey Weinstein, now in prison for sexual assault, at the Lodge in 2006 for his daughter Beatrice's 18th birthday.

Threat to the Crown

Public anger has grown at Andrew's privileged lifestyle, and on Monday the king was heckled during a visit to a cathedral when a man in the crowd shouted out: "How long have you known about Andrew and Epstein?"

Buckingham Palace is acutely aware of the reputational damage posed to the Crown by the scandal.

And now Andrew will be surrendering the lease on Royal Lodge as soon as possible. It is understood he will be moving to the king's Sandringham estate in eastern Norfolk. Ferguson will make her own arrangements.

The decisive action could have been taken to stave off MPs, who appeared ready to break a long-standing taboo on questioning the royals, by holding a parliamentary debate and demanding proper scrutiny of the secretive finances of the family, dubbed The Firm.

One palace source told the Sunday Times that some of the blame lay at the late queen's feet, saying she left "an unexploded bomb for Charles".

"This was a terrible dereliction of duty. She indulged Andrew all the time and always avoided confrontation."

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Varieties

Don’t Ban Children from Social Media, Estonia Tells EU

The TikTok app icon on a smartphone in this illustration taken October 27, 2025. (Reuters)
The TikTok app icon on a smartphone in this illustration taken October 27, 2025. (Reuters)
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Don’t Ban Children from Social Media, Estonia Tells EU

The TikTok app icon on a smartphone in this illustration taken October 27, 2025. (Reuters)
The TikTok app icon on a smartphone in this illustration taken October 27, 2025. (Reuters)

The European Union should make social media platforms change instead of banning children from using the apps, Estonia's digital minister told AFP Monday, just over a week before the EU is due to announce an age limit.

Estonia has been a lone voice in opposing the EU's plans to restrict children's access to social media, instead calling for online platforms to change.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen is expected to announce a social media ban on September 16, with officials saying an age limit of 13 or 15 is under discussion.

But IT-savvy Estonia argues the tech giants have prime responsibility for making their popular platforms safer for minors.

"As children are members of the information society, it's actually the platforms who should change," Estonian Justice and Digital Affairs Minister Liisa-Ly Pakosta said.

"The best interests and rights of the child must guide platforms' design, and that is useful for the whole society," she said in a video interview.

Pakosta pointed to the EU's content law known as the Digital Services Act (DSA) as one way for the bloc to demand platforms change.

She argues for instance that the EU's recommendations for platforms under the DSA to protect children online should be made legally binding.

The EU has already deployed the law to probe Meta's Facebook and Instagram as well as TikTok, and told the platforms to change their "addictive" designs.

Varieties

‘Slumping’ South Korean Corals Worry Divers, Scientists Studying Climate Change

Kang Do-hyung, principal research scientist at Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology and former Oceans and Fisheries Minister, checks corals with researchers at a lab called Jeju Tropica, in Jeju, on Jeju Island, South Korea, August 20, 2026. (Reuters)
Kang Do-hyung, principal research scientist at Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology and former Oceans and Fisheries Minister, checks corals with researchers at a lab called Jeju Tropica, in Jeju, on Jeju Island, South Korea, August 20, 2026. (Reuters)
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‘Slumping’ South Korean Corals Worry Divers, Scientists Studying Climate Change

Kang Do-hyung, principal research scientist at Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology and former Oceans and Fisheries Minister, checks corals with researchers at a lab called Jeju Tropica, in Jeju, on Jeju Island, South Korea, August 20, 2026. (Reuters)
Kang Do-hyung, principal research scientist at Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology and former Oceans and Fisheries Minister, checks corals with researchers at a lab called Jeju Tropica, in Jeju, on Jeju Island, South Korea, August 20, 2026. (Reuters)

Ko Myeong-hyo loved the vibrant color and thriving life of South Korea's soft corals when she first began diving off the coast of Jeju island six years ago, looking to harvest seafood for sale.

"Watching the coral garden collapse and turn white, it was so disorienting," Ko says now, after two years of rising temperatures and harsher weather brought by climate change have led to many corals slumping over and dying.

"I was afraid the whole sea might be collapsing."

The "slumping" phenomenon is showing up again this year, says the Paran Ocean Citizen Science Center, a group of divers who monitor the island's UNESCO-listed soft corals, mostly around uninhabited islets south of Jeju.

Roughly half of one cluster off the islet of Beomseom has been struggling in past months, the group says.

Unlike hard corals supported by rigid calcium carbonate skeletons, soft corals rely on internal fluid pressure to keep upright. Environmental changes can disrupt that pressure, leading them to sag or collapse.

"If another large-scale 'slumping' happens, corals partially recover and ‌then a lot ‌break off and deteriorate again, and that keeps repeating, their capacity to recover just keeps declining," ‌said ⁠researcher Kim Taihun.

Kim ⁠and Anna Beate Jöst, a colleague at the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST), documented Jeju's 2024 soft coral slumping event for the first time in a May article in the journal Scientific Reports.

In an email, Korea Heritage Service, which manages the soft coral colonies designated a national monument, said it has monitored the situation this year and will keep up long-term research to identify the reasons for the changes.

The Oceans Ministry, which oversees marine protected species and areas such as soft corals, added that it plans detailed investigation to gauge the scale of damage.

EL NINO COULD WORSEN THIS YEAR'S EVENT

Kim said this year's event looked similar to that of 2024, but could worsen should high water temperatures persist ⁠through September, and the El Nino weather phenomenon may trigger typhoons and heavy rains.

But he called for ‌consistent and quantitative monitoring of the loss of soft corals through slumping, citing a ‌lack of research support.

Climate change has hit corals globally, with perhaps the world's most famous colonies on Australia's Great Barrier Reef getting the most attention.

A record ‌heatwave has parched the Korean peninsula this year while heavy rains have pelted the south.

Coral researchers say such weather conditions, as ‌well as water flowing down from China's Yangtze River to affect the area's salinity, are potential triggers for "slumping".

Jeju's waters have given safe harbor to soft coral communities, sensitive to environmental conditions and living on the edge of tolerable conditions in the northernmost limit of coral distribution in the East China Sea.

Soft coral functions as the nursery underpinning Jeju's marine ecosystem, and soft coral communities reside in the UNESCO-listed Jeju Island Biosphere Reserve.

"The seaweed sea, the coral ‌sea, is the foundational ecosystem underlying Jeju's marine ecology," said Yoon Sanghoon, an environmental expert at Paran.

"So if this base ecosystem collapses, there's a real possibility the entire marine ecosystem could collapse."

Over the ⁠past decade, marine heatwaves around ⁠Korea have extended almost four times longer, at 83.3 days, weather authorities say.

RIPPLING IMPACT

Paran, formed in 2023 by Jeju residents concerned by marine changes, brings together office workers, traditional divers and documentary filmmakers who flock there for monthly dives.

They plunge to the coral bed to take photograph and document changes they provide to scientists.

While Ko, a third-generation Jeju "haenyeo" or "sea woman", can dive to a depth of as much as 8 m (26 ft) relying on her own breath, she carries an oxygen tank on coral dives to greater depths.

The warming waters have affected the seabed in other ways, said her mother, 70-year-old Son Choon-sook, who began diving 45 years ago, when species such as turban shells, abalone and sea cucumber were abundant and thick seaweed festooned the rocks.

"I've worked at the sea for about 45 years, earned money, and sent my children to school on it," she said. "Now the catch has run dry, and it makes me very sad."

The thinning catch of the past few years follows summers that make the water too hot for species to spawn, she added, and her workday has shrunk to three hours from five formerly, as there is less to gather, but partly also for reasons of health.

Ko said her most recent dives in the summer have worried her again. "Rather than the beautiful coral shapes, I feel like I'm seeing more sick coral now," she added.

Varieties

Can Dogs Sniff Cancer? AI Joins the Hunt in India

A growing body of global research suggests dogs can be trained to detect cancer and other human illnesses. Idrees MOHAMMED / AFP
A growing body of global research suggests dogs can be trained to detect cancer and other human illnesses. Idrees MOHAMMED / AFP
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Can Dogs Sniff Cancer? AI Joins the Hunt in India

A growing body of global research suggests dogs can be trained to detect cancer and other human illnesses. Idrees MOHAMMED / AFP
A growing body of global research suggests dogs can be trained to detect cancer and other human illnesses. Idrees MOHAMMED / AFP

When rescue dog Chloe is not tumbling across the grass on a farm outside India's tech capital Bengaluru, she is learning to sniff human breath for cancer with a little help from AI.

Fitted with a 3D-printed helmet and harness packed with sensors, Chloe is part of experimental efforts to use dogs' extraordinary sense of smell to develop a non-invasive test for the disease.

A growing body of global research suggests dogs can be trained to detect cancer and other human illnesses, from Parkinson's to Covid-19.

The Bengaluru-based startup Dognosis is using AI to analyze dogs' brain activity, respiration and body language -- turning their reaction to scent into data.

"In an hour, they can do thousands of sniffs," co-founder Akash Kulgod, 26, told AFP. "Each sniff can evaluate a sample."

Dognosis hopes to launch commercially next year, which it says would make it the third company of its kind, after firms from Germany and Israel.

Early detection can make a crucial difference to cancer survival rates, but in India many patients are diagnosed only after the disease has advanced.

Dog sniffs could provide an easy and affordable first layer of screening to be deployed at scale, finding potential cases for further testing.

As it chases commercial approval, Dognosis -- backed by venture-capital firms including Accel India -- is collaborating with government medical institutions for its research.

Chloe, a Labrador mix, is one of 15 dogs being coached by the startup, clad in customized data-gathering helmets.

"It's like a doggy 'Iron Man' suit," said Kulgod, who comes from a family of doctors and studied cognitive science at the University of California, Berkeley.

- 'Promising' study -

Research suggests diseases can alter the chemicals released by the body, creating distinctive odors.

Dogs have around 300 million scent receptors, compared to about five million in humans.

The testing method is simple: a patient breathes into a cotton mask for about 10 minutes, and the mask is then sealed in a bag and taken to the lab. Patients do not meet the dogs.

A recent Dognosis study of more than 1,500 participants, involving six hospitals in Karnataka state, was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The company said it achieved an accuracy rate of more than 90 percent across seven major types of cancer, and now plans to test in real-world programs.

Cancer specialists in Bengaluru independent of the project voiced cautious optimism.

"The study is promising, as an early signal," said Santhosh Kumar Devadas, head of oncology at Ramaiah Memorial Hospital.

"But they need to do the study with a much larger group before we make any definitive conclusions."

Neelesh Reddy, a senior consultant oncologist at Manipal Hospitals, told AFP that "only time will tell how this technology will be useful to the actual patients".

- Dog 'work-life balance' -

India has described cancer as a major public health concern, saying one in nine of its 1.4 billion people are likely to develop the disease.

Dognosis says it aims to improve "proactive and preventative medicine" while boosting "human-canine communication".

Most of the dogs are beagles, along with some Malinois and Shepherd mixes, brought on board through adoption or legal breeders.

But only the best are selected, said Kulgod. The dog team individually lists each animal on the company website as an official "sniffer", alongside their photographs.

All have a great "work-life balance", with work time limited to around 30-45 minutes a day, he added.

At a center called "Sniffspace", dogs test human samples on platforms equipped with automatic feeders dispensing dog treats.

Kulgod's co-founder Itamar Bitan, 28, who spent four years in an Israeli special-forces canine unit, said the dogs were trained using "positive reinforcement" to detect a "specific funky smell" for a reward.

"Some of the dogs run directly to the feeder expecting rewards, some dogs freeze, some dogs will scratch the sample with excitement," Bitan said.

"But, as long as the machine that learns how the dogs react to the sample is very consistent... we don't really mind."