Queen Elizabeth II delegated one of her most important public duties to Prince Charles on Tuesday, underscoring the increasingly central role the heir to the crown is taking as his mother prepares to celebrate 70 years on the throne.

Charles presided over the state opening of Parliament and delivered the Queen’s Speech laying out the government’s legislative program. The event is a symbol of the monarch’s constitutional role as head of state and is accompanied by centuries of tradition designed to demonstrate the strength of Britain’s political institutions.

The queen’s decision to delegate her role to Charles is likely to be seen by the public as evidence that a transition is underway, with the 96-year-old monarch remaining on the throne but turning over more responsibilities to her eldest son.

The choreography of the day emphasized a queen who was absent and yet still present. Her throne had been removed, but in its place the Imperial State Crown sat propped on a pillow. Charles, wearing the uniform of an admiral of the fleet, glittered in gold braid rather than sweeping ermine robes.

He was flanked by his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, and his son, Prince William. It was, in essence, all about the dynasty.

“I think the emphasis here was clearly on continuity, a symbolic presence of Elizabeth II, if not a physical presence, and also what the future will likely look like,” said Ed Owens, a royal historian and author of “The Family Firm: Monarchy, Mass Media and the British Public 1932-1953.″

What is the Queen's Speech?

The speech is delivered during the formal opening of each session of Parliament and lays out the government’s legislative program.

It is written by the elected government, currently led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and is read out to a joint meeting of the House of Lords and the House of Commons.

The monarch traditionally arrives for the event in a horse-drawn carriage, sits on the Sovereign’s Throne in the House of Lords and wears the Imperial State Crown.

But Charles, 73, arrived by car and sat not on the sovereign’s throne, which had been removed, but on the consort’s throne, which had been used by his late father, Prince Philip. In the place where the queen’s throne normally is placed, the Imperial State Crown was placed on a velvet cushion.

Charles delivered the speech in the third person, referring to “Her Majesty’s Government.”

Why did Elizabeth decide to skip the speech?

Buckingham Palace didn’t elaborate on what it called “episodic mobility problems,″ but the queen has had difficulty moving around in recent months. She has been seen using a cane on some occasions and Prince Andrew last month escorted her into Westminster Abbey for the memorial service for Prince Philip.

The event involves more than just reading the speech. There is a long walk to the House of Lords, stairs to the throne, and in past years the need to climb in and out of the carriage. All of these obstacles might offer challenges for the sovereign.

Elizabeth, who only recently recovered from a bout of COVID-19, is also preparing for four days of festivities celebrating her Platinum Jubilee that are scheduled for June 2-5.

Has the queen ever missed the speech before?

Yes. In 1959, when she was in the late stages of pregnancy with Prince Andrew, and again in 1963 before the birth of Prince Edward.

On both of those occasions, Parliament was opened by a royal commission, with the speech delivered by the presiding member.

So what's different this time?

This year the queen formally asked Prince Charles to deliver the speech under rules that allow her to delegate some of her duties to senior members of the royal family who are considered “counselors of state.” Counselors of state are required to act in pairs, so Charles was accompanied by his eldest son, Prince William.

Because the duties had been delegated to Charles, there was less disruption of the ceremonial aspects of the day.

The public should be able to take comfort from the continuity that Charles’ appearance represents, said Robert Hazell, a professor of government and the constitution at University College London.

“Yes, we are, in effect, preparing for a transition,″ he told The Associated Press. “The queen is in her mid-90s. She won’t live forever. We are nearing the last years of her reign, and during those last years, if she is no longer capable of putting in public appearances, Prince Charles can deputize on her behalf.”

A federal police investigator in Brazil says a suspect has confessed to fatally shooting an Indigenous expert and a freelance British journalist in the Amazon, and the investigator said the suspect took officers to where the bodies were buried.

Officer Eduardo Alexandre Torres said at a news conference on Wednesday evening that the prime suspect in the case had detailed what happened to the pair who went missing on June 5. Torres said the suspect confessed he used a firearm to kill Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira of Brazil and freelance reporter Dom Phillips of Britain.

Police say they recovered human remains on Wednesday but they have not yet been positively identified.

“We found the bodies nearly two miles into the woods,” an investigator said. “They put bags of dirt on the boat so it would sink,” he said.

Pereira, 41, and Phillips, 57, were last seen on their boat in a river near the entrance of the Javari Valley Indigenous Territory, which borders Peru and Colombia. That area has seen violent conflicts between fishermen, poachers and government agents.

Dignitaries, heads of state, and others who want to pay their final respects to Queen Elizabeth II are converging on London to pay their final respects.

Each person has their own way of grieving a loss. One woman decided to bring the ashes of her grandmother, who she says "loved the Queen."

"I brought my nan with me today, her ashes. She loved the queen," she said.

The BBC spoke to many people out and about London who laid flowers and shed tears and talked about memories of Queen Elizabeth II over the years.

"So, we brought her with us, yeah she loved the Queen, absolutely loved the Queen," the woman said as she wore a somber, mostly black outfit.

She said, in age, that her grandmother and the Queen were just a year apart.

People from all walks of life and many countries spoke about how they felt the Queen was a unifying spirit and entered their lives with meaning.

Another woman said, "It's the end of an era, 70 years, it'll never happen again. She was the calm amongst the storms, but you always knew she'd be a constant presence."

The Royal Air Force flight that transported Queen Elizabeth II's coffin from Edinburgh to Greater London was the most tracked flight in history, according to the website Flightradar24.

The flight, destined for RAF Northolt was tracked within its first minute in the air, and as the BBC reported, the huge amount of web traffic to the sight during the flights caused disruptions for administrators.

The previous record for the most tracked flight was when U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's flight from the U.S. on her tour of Asia was followed as she flew to Taiwan. That flight was followed by some 2.2 million viewers of Flightradar24.

As the BBC reported, Queen Elizabeth II's coffin was transported on an RAF Globemaster C-17 after it finished lying in state at St. Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh. It then was flown to Greater London, where it was driven to Buckingham Palace in London.

Princess Anne and her husband, Sir Timothy Laurence, accompanied the coffin on the flight.

The princess said, "It has been an honor and a privilege to accompany her on her final journeys."

She said she felt fortunate to be with her "dearest mother" in her final hours of life before her death.

Production for Netflix's royal drama "The Crown" paused briefly while filming season six of the show as the world paid their final respects to Britain's Queen Elizabeth II after her death.

Season five is still set for release on Nov. 9 and will feature a new actress playing the queen.

Claire Foy played Queen Elizabeth II for the first two seasons of the show. Then for seasons three and four, Olivia Colman took over portraying Her Majesty.

Now for the latest season, Imelda Staunton will take over the role.

Season five is expected to focus on the queen's preparations for the 40th anniversary of her ascension to the throne, Netflix revealed.

"She reflects on a reign that has encompassed nine Prime Ministers, the advent of mass television, and the twilight of the British Empire," the streaming giant said.

The role of then-Prince Charles is portrayed by Dominic West, and Elizabeth Debicki was cast in the role of Princess Diana.

Researchers with the company Cortical Labs say they believe they've grown the first "sentient" brain in a lab.

The "mini-brain," as researchers have cautiously termed it, is being hailed as an "exciting" project by experts, but some say it might be going too far.

Cortical Labs

Dr. Brett Kagan, who was part of the project, made the "sentient" claims in the journal Neuron saying, "We could find no better term to describe the device.'

Kagan said, "It is able to take in information from an external source, process it, and then respond to it in real time."

The BBC reported that "mini-brains" were first created or produced in 2013 so researchers could examine and study brain development and microcephaly (a genetic issue involving tiny brains.)

The Cortical Labs research is the first time these "mini-brains" have interacted with an external environmental force.

The researchers plugged it into a video game from the 1970s called "Pong," which is a rudimentary game that is played by batting a digital ball shape on the screen back and forth in the style of tennis. The cells were connected using electrodes.

Researchers grew 800,000 human brain cells from stem cells and mouse embryos.

Researchers said after some trial and error, the cells "learned" to play the game in just a few minutes or more.

Researchers hope the study data can be used for future projects to try and treat neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's.

LONDON (AP) — Britain's press erupted in outrage Friday at Prince Harry and Meghan's documentary series, which lambasts the U.K. media over its treatment of the royal couple.

But much of Britain reacted to the Netflix show with a shrug. Buckingham Palace had no comment, and the prime minister didn't watch.

The first three hour-long episodes of "Harry and Meghan" were released Thursday, with three more due Dec. 15. So far, the series has contained few of the bombshells the palace had feared.

In the program the couple, along with friends and Meghan's family members, recount their early lives and blossoming romance, leading up to their fairy-tale wedding at Windsor Castle in 2018, and their growing discontent with what they saw as the media's racist treatment of Meghan and a lack of support from the palace.

Harry and Meghan walked away from royal duties in early 2020 and moved to California to start a new life as campaigners, charity benefactors and media personalities.

At the heart of the show is the symbiotic and sometimes toxic relationship between Britain's royal family and the media. Each side needs the other, but both are often dissatisfied with the arrangements. Prince Harry has long railed against press intrusion that he says clouded his childhood and contributed to the death of his mother, Princess Diana. She was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997 while being pursued by photographers.

Meghan claims in the documentary that the media wanted to "destroy" her, while Harry says his wife was subjected to a press "feeding frenzy."

That riled British newspapers, many of which splashed their anger across front pages and editorial columns.

Some objected to claims in the series that the Commonwealth of the U.K. and its former colonies — an organization led until her death by Queen Elizabeth II — is an extension of the British Empire and its racism. The Daily Telegraph's front page accused the show of being a "direct hit" on the queen's legacy. In an editorial, the conservative-leaning Daily Mail called the show "little more than a hatchet job from start to finish."

The tabloid Sun said the documentary was "made for an American audience — cementing their money-making potential in the US — and to hell with everything and everybody else, including the truth."

Scotland's Daily Record said the palace was stunned by the couple's allegations, running the headline: "We are not amused."

Bob Seely, a lawmaker with the governing Conservative Party, said he would try to introduce a bill in Parliament to strip the couple of their royal titles, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Seely said Prince Harry was attacking important British institutions, "as well as trashing his family and monetizing his misery for public consumption."

Employment Minister Guy Opperman branded the couple "utterly irrelevant" and urged people "to boycott Netflix and make sure that we actually focus on the things that matter."

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's office said it did not back Seely's bill, or a Netflix boycott.

"It's a matter for the public what channels they want to watch," said spokesman Jamie Davies. He said the prime minister had not watched the series, and the government "would never comment on royal matters."

The show comes at a crucial moment for the monarchy. King Charles III is trying to show that the institution still has a role to play after the death in September of the queen, whose personal popularity dampened criticism of the crown during her 70-year reign.

The king declined to comment on the Netflix series during public engagements in London on Thursday or during a visit Friday to Welsh soccer club Wrexham AFC, where he met the team's owners, Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.

Both said they had not watched the series, with McElhenney joking, "I've never heard of it."

Many in Britain had mixed feelings about a show that rehashes long-running grievances between the Sussexes, the palace and the press.

In London, 59-year-old Lucy Barratt said the documentary was "too much" — but that she might watch it anyway,

"I know it's awful being a royal, but part of being a royal is not complaining," she said. "Go on, have a drink with a mate and talk about it.

"I'm torn between watching it and I slightly want to cancel Netflix. But then, as a sort of voyeur, I might watch it."

The United States has been charging visitors for electronic travel authorization since 2009, and now the United Kingdom and the European Union are rolling out entry fees, too.Visa waiver schemes have been around for a while. The United States has the $21 ESTA, valid for two years, and Europe will be introducing the 7 euro ETIAS (about $7.50 on exchange rates this week) in 2024. That one will last you three years.The United Kingdom, you may recall, rather famously fled the EU coop a couple of years back. Now it’s revealed the price tag for its own scheme, the ETA (Electronic Travel Authorisation): £10 (about $12.50) for two years.Admittedly, that’s only about the price of a large fish and chips, but it does mean access to the nations that gave us the Tower of London and Edinburgh Castle will be more expensive than a pass to the home countries of the Eiffel Tower, the Coliseum, the Sagrada Familia and the Acropolis combined.The plan is for the scheme to be rolled out for people who don’t require a visa to enter the United Kingdom – including U.S. and EU nationals – by the end of 2024, with the first nation to join the scheme being Qatar later this year.

A private jet carrying 74-year-old Sir Elton John suffered a hydraulic failure while at 10,000 feet in the air, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing in the U.K. on Monday, the Independent reported.

The plane was reportedly forced to abort the landing twice as it worked to touch down at Farnborough Airport in Hampshire, England.

John was on his way to New York to perform at the 20,000-capacity Madison Square Garden arena that night. He had to take a later flight but was able to make it in time to perform for the show.

As Fox News reported, a representative said that fire crews and ambulances were called to assist on the ground as the plane landed. As the Sun reported, a witness who said they saw the landing told the outlet, "The jet was buffeted and couldn't land. It was horrible to see."

A representative told Fox News that the singer is "all good and performed last night at Madison Square Garden."

John was scheduled to perform in New York on Tuesday and Wednesday night.

Buckingham Palace says Queen Elizabeth II has tested positive for COVID-19 and is experiencing mild, cold-like symptoms. The palace said Sunday that the 95-year-old British monarch will continue with light duties.

The palace says "she will continue to receive medical attention and will follow all the appropriate guidelines." The queen has received three vaccine shots. Both her eldest son Prince Charles and her daughter-in-law Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, have also recently contracted COVID-19.

Britain's longest-reigning monarch, the queen reached the milestone of 70 years on the throne on Feb. 6. Top U.K. politicians, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson, quickly issued messages wishing the queen a speedy recovery.

As the Associated Press reported, "She will continue to receive medical attention and will follow all the appropriate guidelines," according to a statement from the palace.

The colossal 180 million-year-old fossilized remains of an ichthyosaur have been found in the U.K., in what researchers have described as one of the most significant discoveries in the region.

Discovered in a reservoir in the county of Rutland, in the English East Midlands, the specimen is the largest and most complete ichthyosaur fossil ever found in the U.K., measuring nearly 33 feet in length and with a skull weighing one ton.

It is also thought to be the first of its particular species — Temnodontosaurus trigonodon — to be found in Britain.

Marine reptiles that lived alongside the dinosaurs, ichthyosaurs resembled dolphins in body shape. They became extinct around 90 million years ago, after first appearing 250 million years ago.

The ichthyosaur was first uncovered in February last year in the Rutland Water Nature Reserve by Joe Davis, a conservation team leader from Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust, which operates the nature reserve in partnership with owner Anglian Water.

Davis was undertaking routine re-landscaping work, which involved draining the water in the lagoon, when he spotted parts of vertebrae sticking out of the mud, the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust said in a press release.

Then followed a large-scale excavation in August and September by a team of paleontologists, led by Dean Lomax, an ichthyosaur expert and current visiting scientist at the University of Manchester.

"The size and the completeness together is what makes it truly exceptional," Lomax told CNN, adding that previous finds of ichthyosaurs in the UK had been "nowhere near as complete and as large as this."

Lomax said it was the most complete large specimen -- which he classified as being 10 or more meters in length -- found globally. He said it was "a really fantastic discovery" as well as, for him, "a real career highlight."

"This was a top of the food chain, apex predator," he told CNN of the discovery. "So this would have been dining on other ichthyosaurs, it would have been eating large fish, it would have eaten, if could catch them, squids as well."

However, Lomax said the discovery was the "tip of the iceberg," with much left to uncover of the specimen after chunks of rock have been cleared away, with the possibility that the ichthyosaur's last meal may have been preserved or even that the reptile could have been pregnant.

"It was just mind blowing," Regan Harris, a spokeswoman for Anglian Water, told CNN. "I mean, you kind of couldn't really believe your eyes when you were looking at it in front of you. But yeah, incredible."

Harris, who was onsite for the excavation, said smaller ichthyosaurs had previously been found on the Rutland Water site, but the "sheer scale" and "well preserved" nature of this particular discovery made it unique.

Paul Barrett, Merit Researcher in the Earth Sciences Vertebrates and Anthropology Palaeobiology department at the Natural History Museum in London, said the Rutland ichthyosaur was "probably one of the largest fossil reptiles ever found, including dinosaurs." Barrett was not involved in the find.

"It's genuinely a really impressive, spectacular object," Barrett told CNN. "Certainly one of the most impressive marine fossil discoveries from the UK that I can remember at least in the last 20 to 30 years or so."

Barrett, whose work has covered dinosaurs and other extinct reptiles including ichthyosaurs, said the find confirmed the "cosmopolitanism" of the species, which had previously mainly been known in Germany.

The specimen is currently being treated by a specialist paleontological conservator, a process that will take 12-18 months. Following this, Harris said, the aim will be to put it on public display.

"We're very proud of it, and I know the local community are as well," she told CNN. "We very much want to bring it back home to Rutland and have it on display for people to enjoy."

For Lomax, the lead researcher, one hope is to explore the Rutland Water site further, as six or seven vertebrae from other ichthyosaurs were also uncovered during the excavation.

He said the fact that "serendipitous things have happened to actually make this find" had not been lost on him.

"Honestly, it's incredibly unusual," Lomax told CNN. "Avid fossil hunters or paleontologists, they can search their entire careers and never find anything quite like this, even when you know where you're looking."

LONDON (AP) — Queen Elizabeth II has made a knight of the 100-year-old World War II veteran who captivated the British public by walking 100 laps of his garden and raising some 33 million pounds ($40 million) for the National Health Service.

The queen tapped the blade of a sword once owned by her father on the shoulders of Tom Moore on Friday to turn the hero of a nation into a knight of the realm.

Moore steadied himself against his now-famous walker and wheeled himself close enough to stand in front of Elizabeth but skipped the normal practice of taking a knee before the monarch.

Before being knighted, CNN reports that Moore said, "If I kneel down, I'll never get up again."

He revealed afterward that he and the 94-year-old queen spoke about ages.

James Bond star Daniel Craig was made an honorary officer of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy on Thursday — matching his onscreen 007 persona, who holds the rank of commander.

"I am delighted to welcome honorary Commander Daniel Craig to the Royal Navy," First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the head of the Royal Navy, said in a news statement.

Video above: Everything you need to remember before "No Time to Die"

"Daniel Craig is well known for being Commander Bond for the last 15 years -- a naval officer who keeps Britain safe through missions across the globe. That's what the real Royal Navy does every day, using technology and skill the same way as Bond himself."

Craig wants to use his new military status — commander is the seventh-highest rank in the Royal Navy — as a way to help U.K. military families, according to the statement.

Craig is about to star as the British super-spy for the fifth time in "No Time to Die," which the U.K. military is also using to highlight some of its newest hardware.

HMS Dragon, a new Type 45 air defense destroyer, appears in the movie, the Defense Ministry said. The Royal Navy's website calls the 8,000-ton, 500-foot warship one of the most advanced in the world.

In a June exercise off Scotland, HMS Dragon used its weapon systems to "smash an incoming missile into a million pieces," a Royal Navy release said.

"I cannot believe how lucky I am to be part of this; the flames were massive!" one of the ship's officers, Sub Lieutenant Ben Craddock, said in the statement.

That's the kind of action you'd expect from a James Bond movie.

Other U.K. hardware, including C-17 Globemaster cargo jets like those that participated in the recent international airlift out of Kabul, Afghanistan, is also featured.

But the Royal Navy said the real attention, of course, is on Craig.

"Our honorary officers act as ambassadors and advocates for the service, sharing their time and expertise to spread the message about what our global, modern, and ready Royal Navy is doing around the world," Radakin said.

Being part of one of history's most successful box-office franchises won't hurt spreading that message either.

LONDON —

The will of Prince Philip, the late husband of Britain's Queen Elizabeth, will be sealed and remain private for at least 90 years to preserve the monarch's dignity, a judge at London's High Court has ruled.

Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, who had been married to the 95-year-old British monarch for more than seven decades, died at the age of 99 at his wife's Windsor Castle home on April 9.

In keeping with a convention dating back to 1910, Andrew McFarlane, the president of the court's Family Division, said he had agreed Philip's will should be sealed up "and that no copy of the will should be made for the record or kept on the court file."

Video above: Prince Harry will appear in television special about Prince Philip

He also ruled in favor of the request "to exclude the value of the estate from the grant of probate."

"The degree of publicity that publication would be likely to attract would be very extensive and wholly contrary to the aim of maintaining the dignity of the Sovereign," McFarlane said in a ruling published on Thursday.

He said the convention was that following the death of a senior royal, an application to seal the will was made to the Family Division president, with such hearings and judgments kept private.

However, he said "as is plain from this judgment" he considered it was a "necessary and proportionate intrusion into the private affairs of Her Majesty and the Royal Family to make public the fact that an application to seal the will of HRH The Prince Philip ... has been made and granted in private, and to explain the underlying reasons."

The judge said 90 years should pass from the granting of probate before the will should be unsealed in private before possible publication, a period he said was "proportionate and sufficient."

He said the first royal whose will was sealed was Prince Francis of Teck, who was the younger brother of George V's wife Queen Mary. He said he was the custodian of a safe containing more than 30 envelopes with the wills of dead royals. The most recent additions were made in 2002 following the deaths of Queen Elizabeth's mother, Elizabeth, and her sister Princess Margaret, he said.

The once picturesque blue waters of a lagoon in the United Kingdom now look murky.

On Wednesday, the Buxton Police Department in England took the measure to dye the 'Blue Lagoon' to deter visitors during the coronavirus pandemic.

The police department posted to their Facebook page that they had received reports of people going up to the lagoon in Harpur Hill, Buxton, England, which is against policies set in place by the government.

Police officials said they used water dye to make the water "less appealing."

"This is a regular tactic that we use to reduce ASB, and we work in partnership with HPBC and Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service," officials said via Facebook. "However, as things stand, it has never been so important to discourage these types of gatherings."