King Charles has recorded a warm personal message to researchers in Antarctica celebrating a frozen Midwinter’s Day – the first time a monarch has given the annual broadcast.

Marking the BBC Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast‘s 70th anniversary, which sends a morale-raising message to remote research stations in the depths of their winter, the King praised the work of scientists tracking climate change.

“Each observation, measurement and calculation you undertake adds to the world’s understanding of the Earth’s fragile systems,” the King said.

Alex Rootes, who leads the UK’s Rothera research base, said it was an honour to be recognised for their work “at the cutting edge of science in a really difficult part of the world”.

While much of the UK swelters in the summer heat, Antarctica is celebrating an icy Midwinter’s Day without any sun and with driving snow.

“With the sun shying away from your horizon today, I particularly wanted to send my warmest good wishes,” said the King, who praises the researchers’ “critically important work”.

The King, a longstanding environmental campaigner, spoke of his appreciation for the scientists’ “resilience and commitment” as they tracked changes in the ice in Antarctica, examining the “role humanity plays, as we struggle to live in harmony with nature”.

The broadcast from the BBC World Service is part of the traditional Midwinter celebrations for scientists at these isolated bases.

Previous contributions have included a message from Sir David Attenborough, a quirky song from Bill Bailey – “There’s rock and roll at the South Pole” – and a comedy sketch from the cast of W1A, which claims “they’re actually moving a glacier from one place to another”.

King Charles is the first monarch to be part of this annual broadcast – with a message praising the British Antarctic Survey, which he said was “more vital than ever, telling us stories of the past, the present and possible futures”.

The British Antarctic Survey has described Antarctica as a “barometer of environmental change”, as its researchers extract and analyse ice cores to see changes in climate over hundreds of thousands of years.

Mr Rootes is one of 41 researchers at Rothera who will be listening to the broadcast in Antarctica – a location so remote that it’s a thousand miles to the nearest hospital. Also in this very bespoke audience have been researchers at bases in Bird Island and South Georgia.

Mr Rootes told the BBC it was currently warmer than usual in Antarctica, at -2C, but that it can be tough to cope without any daylight, which makes it even more important to have a community celebration for Midwinter.

“At this time of year when the darkness has really closed in, it’s very easy psychologically for people to withdraw into themselves,” he said.

“It’s a really vital part of our mental health provision that people have something like this, which people really look forward to.”

The traditions for Midwinter Day are something similar to having Christmas in June, including giving presents, a big dinner and watching the same film each year.

The seasonal favourite is The Thing, a 1980s sci-fi horror film about a group of scientists in Antarctica under threat from an unknown presence. Mr Rootes says it’s now part of the ritual of the day.

This is the southern winter solstice, the shortest day in their location, more than 1,000 miles south of the southern tip of South America.

This year, there are plans at the Rothera base for a 10km (6.2 miles) fun run, if the conditions allow. It’s one way of chilling out.

The annual BBC broadcast becomes a connection with home, with messages sent by the researchers’ families and selections of their favourite music.

But Mr Rootes said the King’s message will be an important endorsement of their work, as they measure changes in marine life and the ice linked to climate change.

“It’s lovely to feel like we have the King talking to us and recognising us in this remote community,” he said.

A Scottish schoolgirl’s message in a bottle has finally received a reply more than 30 years later – after being discovered in Norway.

Alaina Beresford, from Portknockie in Moray, sent the message in 1994 when she was 12 as part of a school project.

It washed up across the North Sea where it was found by a volunteer cleaning up a Norwegian island – who then dispatched a postcard to the delighted sender to let her know.

Alaina told BBC Scotland News she could not believe her original letter was in such good condition after three decades.

Her handwritten letter had been sent in an empty bottle of Moray Cup, a fizzy drink produced in the north east of Scotland.

It said: “Dear finder. My name is Alaina Stephen and I am 12 years of age. I come from Portknockie and I am doing a project on water so I decided to send a message in a bottle.

“My teacher’s husband took them and dropped them in the middle of the ocean.

“When you find this message, please write back with your name, hobbies, where you found the message, when, and if you could, a little information about your area. Yours sincerely, Alaina Stephen. PS I come from Scotland.”

Now, 31 years on, Alaina has received a postcard from Pia Brodtmann, telling her the good news, with pictures of the find.

It said: “My name is Pia and I am from Germany. Today I found your message in a bottle on Lisshelløya, a tiny island around Vega in Norway.

“I am here for beach cleaning as a volunteer for four months and today we cleaned Lisshelløya. On the front of the postcard you can see our workboat Nemo and our sailboat Fonn, where we live. You can also see the area around Vega. I wonder when and where your teacher’s husband threw your bottle in the ocean?”

It added: “PS I am 27 years old and I like rock climbing and sailing a lot!”

Alaina, now 42, said she was stunned when she picked up the post and noticed the postcard addressed to herself.

“I’m at the same address,” she said.

“I did live in Buckie, and another house in Portknockie for a while, but moved back in with my parents.

“I couldn’t believe it, as I had sent it when I was 12 years old, 31 years ago.”

Alaina was able to find Pia via social media, and messaged her asking to send a photo of her letter.

“I was shocked when she did, I couldn’t believe how legible it was,” she said.

“I can’t remember actually writing the message, but I do remember it was a Moray Cup bottle, and that my teacher’s husband had dropped it into the sea when he was a fisherman.

“According to my message, I had done it as part of a project on water. It was when I was in P7.”

She added: “Pia and I have been keeping in touch and hopefully we will continue to do so.”

A photo of the Prince of Wales with another generation – this time of puppies – has been posted on social media by Kensington Palace to mark his 43rd birthday.

The picture, taken by the Princess of Wales, shows Prince William with their family’s Cocker spaniel, Orla, and three of her four recently-arrived puppies.

The message for Prince William was signed online “with love”, with the initials of Catherine and their children, George, Charlotte, Louis, and “the puppies”, plus a paw print emoji.

The picture was taken in Windsor earlier this month.

There was also a message online for Prince William from the official account of the Royal Family, saying “Happy Birthday to The Prince of Wales!”, plus some celebratory emojis.

An accompanying picture, of the prince sitting on a stone wall, was taken while he visited farmers and food producers on the Duchy of Cornwall – a parcel of land William now owns – in May.

Orla was given to the royal couple by Catherine’s brother, James Middleton, in 2020, shortly after the death of their previous dog Lupo.

The dog – seen walking behind William in the picture – gave birth to four puppies in May.

Spaniels are well known for their affectionate behaviour and the picture shows the puppies clambering around the prince.

In the puppy picture, the prince looks relaxed in a pair of jeans and trainers – an informal moment after recent showcase occasions, including Trooping the Colour and the Order of the Garter procession.

He also visited a project linked to his Earthshot environmental prize which creates a type of sustainable dye that can reduce the fashion industry’s use of harmful chemicals – so colours can really be green.

Catherine did not appear at Royal Ascot earlier this week, with royal aides saying she had to find a balance in how she returned to public events. In January, the princess revealed she was in remission after her cancer diagnosis last year.

On Friday, she sent out a message about her support for children’s hospices – saying they helped families who were “heartbroken, fearful of the future and often desperately isolated”.

And now her photo has marked her husband’s birthday.

While Prince William was born in mid-summer on the longest day of the year, his father King Charles has been praising those in Antarctica experiencing the shortest day of the year.

He recorded a special message for the BBC’s Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast, which sends a morale-raising message to scientists working in remote research stations in the depths of their winter.

The King praised the work of researchers tracking climate change.

Dame Esther Rantzen has appealed to the House of Lords not to block a bill giving terminally ill adults in England and Wales the right to an assisted death, after it was backed by MPs on Friday.

The Terminally Ill Adults Bill was passed by 314 votes to 291 in the House of Commons – but will need to go through the Lords before becoming law.

Broadcaster Dame Esther, who joined the Swiss assisted dying clinic Dignitas after being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in 2023, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Their job is to scrutinise, to ask questions, but not to oppose.”

Critics of the bill, including Conservative peer Lord Shinkwin, say it could see disabled and vulnerable people being coerced into ending their lives.

This bill puts a price “on my head” and “the heads of so many disabled people” and older people, the prominent disability rights campaigner, who will get a vote in the Lords, told Today.

Some peers, including Lord Shinkwin, have indicated they will attempt to amend the legislation to introduce more safeguards.

Dame Esther, a prominent supporter of the bill, said she did not “need to teach the House of Lords how to do their job”.

“People who are adamantly opposed to this bill – and they have the perfect right to oppose it – will try and stop it going through the Lords.”

But she said the duty of peers was to make sure “law is actually created by the elected chamber, which is the House of Commons, who have voted this through”.

Even though MPs have approved the bill, peers in the Lords could stop it from becoming law by voting against it or not approving it quickly enough.

Under the proposals, mentally competent, terminally ill adults in England and Wales with a life expectancy of less than six months would be eligible for an assisted death.

They would need to make two separate declarations, signed and witnessed, about their “clear, settled and informed” wish to die, and satisfy two independent doctors that they are eligible and have not been coerced.

There would be at least a seven-day gap between each assessment.

The application would then go before a multi-disciplinary panel comprising a psychiatrist, a social worker and a lawyer.

If the panel approved the application, there would be a further 14-day “period of reflection” which could be cut to 48 hours if the patient is likely to die within a month.

Lord Shinkwin explained that, only a few months ago, he had been in intensive care and found himself in an “extremely vulnerable” state.

Had a doctor asked him at the time about assisted dying – which he said doctors would be allowed to do under the provision of the bill – he “would have felt under real pressure to do that”.

The Conservative peer said he had concerns that safeguards, such as those in the bill’s current form, could be eroded, as suggested they had been in other jurisdictions where assisted dying legislation had been enacted.

He added that some vulnerable groups – including older and disabled people – might feel they were a burden on “family, friends or society”.

“I have to say, as a disabled person, feeling you are a burden goes with the territory,” Lord Shinkwin said. “And I don’t want people to feel under pressure.”

Pressed about concerns that vulnerable people could be coerced into an assisted death, Dame Esther replied: “We have got this right.”

She said the bill set out a “rigorous” process. An assisted death would only be available to those with six months to live who chose to ask for help with ending their lives, and had that request approved by doctors and a panel of experts.

She added that that “disability will not qualify anyone for assisted dying, nor will mental disorder”.

Dame Esther said she was “deeply relieved” by Friday’s vote – though she noted it was unlikely to become law in her lifetime.

“At least I know that for future generations, if life becomes intolerable, unbearable, and they are terminally ill with six months or less to live, they will be able to ask for a pain-free, swift death.”

Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, who will get a vote in the Lords, said that she had heard from “disabled people [who] are absolutely terrified” of the bill.

The former Paralympian told BBC Breakfast that it was the “job in the Lords” to go “line by line” to ensure all amendments were fairly debated, adding: “I do think there are a lot more safeguards that could be put in.”

The Commons vote in favour of the bill came after a debate that saw MPs tell their personal stories of seeing friends and relatives die.

It is likely, though not guaranteed, that the Lords will approve the bill later this year.

If that happens, ministers would have a maximum of four years to implement the measures, meaning assisted dying may not become available until 2029.

Conservative MP Danny Kruger, a vocal opponent of the move, said he hoped the Lords would either reject the proposed legislation or “substantially strengthen it”.

But Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who proposed the bill, said she hoped there would be “no funny games” in the Lords, “because the process has been extremely thorough”.

The “close” margin in the Commons, Lord Shinkwin argued, shows that “many MPs would appreciate the opportunity” to look at the legislation again.

“If 12 members of Parliament had voted the other way, we would not be having this conversation right now.”

Any changes made in the House of Lords would also have to be approved by MPs before the bill could become law.

The legislation was approved with a majority of 23 MPs – less than half the margin of 55 in favour when it was first debated in November.

MPs were given a free vote on the bill, meaning they did not have to follow a party policy.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer backed the legislation, while Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and Health Secretary Wes Streeting voted against it.

Tulsi Gabbard says Iran could produce nuclear weapons “within weeks”, months after she testified before Congress that the country was not building them.

The US Director of National Intelligence said her March testimony – in which she said Iran had a stock of materials but was not building these weapons – had been taken out of context by “dishonest media”.

Her change of position came after Donald Trump said she was “wrong” and that intelligence showed Iran had a “tremendous amount of material” and could have a nuclear weapon “within months”.

Iran has always said that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful and that it has never sought to develop a nuclear weapon.

On Thursday Trump said he was giving Tehran the “maximum” of two weeks to reach a deal on its nuclear activities with Washington. He said he would soon decide whether the US should join Israel’s strikes on Iran.

Disagreement has been building within Trump’s “America First” movement over whether the US should enter the conflict.

On Saturday morning, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said his country was “absolutely ready for a negotiated solution” on their nuclear programme but that Iran “cannot go through negotiations with the US when our people are under bombardment”.

In her post on social media, Gabbard said US intelligence showed Iran is “at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months”.

“President Trump has been clear that can’t happen, and I agree,” she added.

Gabbard shared a video of her full testimony before Congress in March, where she said US intelligence agencies had concluded Iran was not building nuclear weapons.

Experts also determined Iran had not resumed its suspended 2003 nuclear weapons programme, she added in the clip, even as the nation’s stockpile of enriched uranium – a component of such weapons – was at an all-time high.

In her testimony, she said Iran’s stock was “unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons”.

Earlier this month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – the global nuclear watchdog – expressed concern about Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, which can be used to make reactor fuel but also nuclear weapons.

Gabbard’s March testimony has been previously criticised by Trump, who earlier told reporters he did not “care what she said”.

The US president said he believes Iran were “very close to having a weapon” and his country would not allow that to happen.

In 2015, Iran agreed a long-term deal on its nuclear programme with a group of world powers after years of tension over the country’s alleged efforts to develop a nuclear weapon.

Iran had been engaging in talks with the US this year over its nuclear programme and was scheduled to hold a further round when Israel launched strikes on Iran on 13 June, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said targeted “the heart” of Iran’s nuclear programme.

“If not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time,” Netanyahu claimed.

Israeli air strikes have destroyed Iranian military facilities and weapons, and killed senior military commanders and nuclear scientists.

Iran’s health ministry said on Saturday that at least 430 people had been killed, while a human rights group, the Human Rights Activists News Agency, put the unofficial death toll at 657 on Friday.

Iran has retaliated with missile and drone strikes against Israel, killing 25 people including one who suffered a heart attack.

“If this is true, all our troubles are over.”

A British businessman fast running out of cash, William Knox D’Arcy, is said to have uttered those words when he received a telegram from Persia, 113 years ago.

Oil had been discovered, after years of failed explorations under Knox D’Arcy, who had been granted the rights to hunt for the black stuff at the turn of the century.

For him, striking oil was to provide a second fortune after he’d made millions from Australian gold.

For the UK, Persia – later to become Iran – and for the rest of the world, it was the moment the Middle East’s financial and political fortunes became linked to the West like never before.

Knox D’Arcy’s cash problem might have been solved. But the troubles in the region were far from over.

This weekend, although ministers want to concentrate on their plans to make it easier to do business at home ahead of their industrial strategy being published next week, two big questions hang heavy.

What happens next in the hottest of conflicts in a vital region? And does the UK play a role?

Whether you like it or not, “it should matter, and it does matter” to the UK, according to one Whitehall source.

There is the fraught tangle of history. Not just the fortune from the first discovery of oil going into British coffers at the start of the last century.

But also the UK’s involvement in overturning the government in 1922, invading with the Russians during World War Two, backing another coup in 1953, then along with America, propping up the Shah until his exit in 1979, after months of turbulence and increasing protest against his regime. You can watch amazing archive of his departure here.

“We were all over them” for decades, one former senior minister observes.

Fast forward to modern times and successive governments have been deeply concerned about Iran’s ambitions to build a nuclear bomb.

There were efforts, particularly by the former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, to do deals that put weapons beyond reach. But there is acute worry now about Iranian activities in the UK itself.

Yesterday, seven men were arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm after two people were assaulted outside the Iranian embassy. The Met Police have said they believe the altercation happened between protesters supporting and opposing the Iranian monarchy.

Last month three alleged Iranian spies were charged for planning to commit serious violence against UK based journalists.

And the director general of MI5 said the UK has responded to 20 Iran-backed plots since the start of 2022, presenting potentially lethal threats here at home.

A source involved with an Iranian opposition group warned the regime, “has a massive network in the UK promoting terrorism and extremism – we’d never let the Russians get away with this… It’s happening on our streets”.

Ministers’ public focus is on diplomacy for now. As ever, it was a suggestion from US President Donald Trump that sent Whitehall into a spin. This time, the notion that America might help Israel take out Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The Foreign Secretary David Lammy jumped on to a plane to Washington. The government emergency committee, Cobra, convened. Everything went into overdrive before another update from team Trump.

Actually, he’d take a fortnight to think about it.

It left No 10 thinking, “everyone can take a breath – the two weeks and the volume of engagement means there is some tone of optimism – we’re just focusing on trying to calm things”, an insider said.

David Lammy spent more than an hour with Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, and Steve Witkoff, the president’s envoy, leaving with the impression there was still a chance for diplomacy, although the threat of America joining the military action is real.

It’s worth remembering there is deep disagreement in Trump’s party about whether to assist Israel or not.

As the foreign secretary was seeking information from his American hosts, the president had been having lunch with Steve Bannon, one of the foremost Make America Great Again (Maga) backers, who has been very loudly pressing Trump not to get involved.

Diplomacy then moved to Geneva, where Lammy and several European colleagues met the Iranian foreign minister. They repeated concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and it breaking the international rules.

The talks finished with no fixed decisions on next moves or negotiations, but a willingness to try. Ultimately, the UK and European push is to keep talking, trying to stop the war spreading more widely. But some sources question whether this makes any difference.

“Europe is pretty irrelevant in all this,” one senior figure told me – and the American president even said it out loud.

“Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this one, ” Trump said, dismissing the diplomatic discussions.

Other sources describe diplomacy as a “sticking plaster”, questioning how effective it can be when Israel is so clearly intent on breaking the status quo, and changing the shape of the region, hoping for regime change in Iran and stopping them creating a nuclear bomb.

The former senior official told me, “Israel think this is a once in a lifetime, it’s now or never… it doesn’t represent a long term solution, but if you are in Tel Aviv the obvious riposte is, ‘Yes, we’ll still be alive’.”

Another security source suggested the UK would not be relevant by taking a “preachy European position, like a teacher in a playground”, but could instead pursue “alignment with the Americans for our own hard interests”.

Aligning with America is so often a no-brainer for British prime ministers.

But a Labour prime minister aligning with Trump to bomb a country in the Middle East? That’s something else.

There is the practicality, “people in Whitehall will be very sceptical if thinking bombing Iran will yield any better outcome”, one former diplomat said.

Another source suggests the UK simply hasn’t done enough thinking in recent years about how to help Iran, a country of around 90 million people with serious political repression and economic hardship: “Britain doesn’t have a strategy or a plan for Iran. It looks at Iran through the point of view of Israel or Gaza but doesn’t look at it in its own right, so that’s a problem.”

If America were to get involved with British support in one way or another, what happens next?

The source said: “The Americans can go and attack Fordo (Iran’s nuclear facility that’s buried deeper than the Channel Tunnel), but if the Iranians lash out after, what then?”

Then, there is the legality. You don’t need me to remind you that the prime minister used to be an eminent lawyer.

Whether the UK was asked to allow American jets to use the British base at Diego Garcia, or help with refuelling planes on their way to any Iranian target, the government would want to be confident there is a solid legal argument that justifies the attack.

There is already a political row over publishing the advice with an understanding the attorney general has expressed concern.

For the uninitiated, this is a very well-worn political track. Opposition parties say legal advice must be published in full. Governments say no. Lawyers and politicians, who are not giving the actual verdict, argue about it very publicly.

In the end, international law is subject to all sorts of interpretation, what a former senior minister describes as “fungible” – in other words, it’s far from fixed.

There is already what one source described as “loose blabber” about the legal advice this time.

Ultimately, the politics of the moment normally comes first, and the prime minister of the day must decide.

The political backdrop for No 10 is risky. Labour contends with the mythology around Tony Blair’s decision to go into Iraq with George Bush, seen by many in the modern party as a disaster.

Any decision too to be seen to support Israeli military action stirs a long-standing streak of anti-Israeli feeling on the left.

Add that to profound concern about what is separately going on in Gaza right now, and it creates another flashpoint.

Pro–Palestinian candidates already swiped seats, and nearly took more from Labour in the general election.

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Highlighting the plight of Gazans is clearly not the same as objecting to Israeli or American action against Iran.

But issues can blur, and add to the volume of angry conversations inside the party about the Middle East.

The former senior minister, around during the Iraq conflict told me, “it would save us an awful lot of bother if you could get the Americans not to have our fingerprints on it”.

But, if the White House asks, “I’d swallow hard and say, ‘OK'”.

Can you imagine Sir Keir Starmer saying no to Trump to help stop Iran creating a nuclear bomb? Can you imagine Sir Keir stepping into a Middle East conflict if it can be avoided?

The answer to both can’t be the same. The White House has pressed pause while Trump mulls his options, but America joining Israel to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme remains an option.

The UK has huge interests in the security of Iran and the wider Middle East – whether oil, trade, intelligence, or military bases.

Those questions for Sir Keir might be real before too long.

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A superyacht has been raised from the seabed nearly a year after it sank off the coast of Sicily, killing seven of the 22 people on board.

Italian officials said the luxury yacht – known as the Bayesian – would be held up by a crane for a series of inspections requested by the public prosecutor’s office. It will later be fully removed from the water.

The Bayesian was owned by British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, who died in the incident alongside his 18-year-old daughter Hannah and five others.

Last month, an ongoing investigation found that Mr Lynch and the crew were unaware of some of the boat’s vulnerabilities – including that wind speeds of over 73mph could topple it.

Footage from the salvage operation shows the hull of the 56m (183ft) vessel – which looks badly damaged and covered in mud – being lifted up by cranes.

In some images, the ship’s name can be seen on the stern of the yacht as it is finally lifted above the water.

The vessel is expected to be taken to the nearby port of Termini Imerese on Monday, where Italian prosecutors investigating the sinking are based.

The Bayesian had been anchored off the port of a small fishing village, Porticello, when it sank in the early hours of 19 August last year.

Witnesses at the time recalled watching it disappear within “a few minutes” during freak weather.

Among the victims were Mr Lynch, 59, and his daughter Hannah; Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer, 70, and his wife, Judy Bloomer, 71, who were all British nationals.

US lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda Morvillo, and Canadian-Antiguan national Recaldo Thomas, who was working as a chef on the vessel, also died in the sinking.

Fifteen people, including Mr Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, were rescued.