Buckingham Palace say the king will not ‘shy away’ from Britain’s role in slavery when he visits Commonwealth nations later this month

King Charles III will acknowledge the “darkest days” of colonial rule and slavery while touring Caribbean countries on a visit beginning this month, a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said on Friday.

The king will first visit the Bahamas and Guyana alone, followed by a trip with Queen Camilla to Antigua and Barbuda, where Charles will give a speech at a meeting of Commonwealth heads of government, the palace said.

Queen speaks of love of reading at festival for charity she founded after success of her Instagram book club

Queen Camilla has spoken of her love for books with a “life-enhancing power” after a series of allegations were made about King Charles in extracts from Earl Spencer’s memoir about the life of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Camilla was welcomed to Chatsworth House in Derbyshire for the first day of the festival for the Queen’s Reading Room, a charity she founded after the success of her Instagram book club during the pandemic.

In video celebrating Maggie’s cancer charity, queen recalls ‘longing to let it out’ on visit to centre in 2024

The queen has spoken for the first time of how difficult she found it to keep King Charles’s cancer a secret before it was announced publicly.

Camilla found herself “longing to let it out” during an official visit to a Maggie’s cancer support centre in 2024, after Charles had received his diagnosis but before the news was released.

Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet believed to have had private reunion with king

King Charles has enjoyed a private reunion with the grandchildren he has not seen for four years, it is understood.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their children, Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five, were hosted by Charles and Queen Camilla at the king’s private residence, Highgrove House in Gloucestershire, on Friday afternoon.

Despite £369m upgrade, King Charles will never live in palace but aides stress it will remain ‘buzzing hive’ of activity

Not all modern British monarchs have viewed the prospect of moving into Buckingham Palace with unalloyed joy. So in announcing he will never live there, after the completion of its £369m upgrade next year, King Charles has at least grasped that nettle.

Queen Victoria was initially dismayed by the damp, dingy and disorganised building that greeted her and her husband, Prince Albert, in 1837. It was Albert who refashioned it into “Monarchy HQ”. After his death in 1861, Victoria retreated mainly to Windsor, Balmoral and Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.

Charles and Camilla to remain at Clarence House and are said to want the public to have more access to ‘monarchy HQ’

• King Charles’s tax bill: what did we learn and what is still in the dark?

• Crown estate makes more than £1bn profit for third year running

King Charles and Queen Camilla will not move into Buckingham Palace when £369m of buildings works to update it finish next year, preferring to remain at Clarence House, their London home nearby.

The announcement came as it was revealed the king paid £12.9m in income and capital gains tax in 2024-25 on his personal income, known as the privy purse, making him among the country’s top 100 taxpayers. Prince William paid £7.76m for the same period.

Whimsical film shows relay of animals carrying centennial card from Balmoral Castle to naturalist in London

King Charles has featured in a surprise birthday tribute to David Attenborough, with a cast of wild animals helping to relay his handwritten congratulatory centenary card.

The whimsical film, A Very Special Delivery, begins with the king writing his tribute in the library of Balmoral Castle. Charles, wearing an animal-themed tie featuring elephants, reflects on more than 60 years of friendship with the renowned naturalist.

Quintessentially almost quadrupled staff in Middle East and Asia less than year before wealthy began to flee Gulf

The embattled luxury concierge service co-founded by Queen Camilla’s nephew Ben Elliot embarked on what appeared to be an inopportune hiring spree in the Middle East and Asia before wealthy individuals began fleeing the region because of the US-Israel war on Iran.

Quintessentially almost quadrupled staff in the regions from 22 to 84 during its financial year to 30 April 2025, according to newly released annual accounts, which again reported multimillion-pound losses and warned of “material uncertainty” about its future.

Questions for Trump’s defense secretary fall along partisan lines – Democrats make critical points as Republicans give Hegseth the chance to flaunt war successes

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Louisiana governor Jeff Landry yesterday told GOP candidates that he plans to suspend next month’s primary elections so that state lawmakers can pass a new congressional map first, the Washington Post (paywall) reported last night.

It came hours after the US supreme court decided that Louisiana’s creation of a second majority black congressional district to satisfy previously rulings relied too heavily on race and was “an unconstitutional racial gerrymander”, as opposed to a required effort to comply with the Voting Rights Act.

Britain’s king and queen have met Donald and Melania Trump for a US state visit, which was arranged to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the US’s independence

Charles quoted Wilde and Dickens in measured masterclass – and no tirade as yet from mad monarch in White House

A flick of Oscar Wilde here, a nod to Henry Kissinger there, a sprinkling of Charles Dickens here, a dollop of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt there. Job done!

The British monarch mobilised an elite squad of dead white men, leavened with humour and subliminal politicking, on Tuesday in a charm offensive aimed over Donald Trump’s head and squarely at the US Congress. Judging by the cheers and minute-long applause he received at the end, the soft power flex worked a treat and the special relationship lives to fight another day.

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• Trump v Comey: a timeline of the president and ex-FBI director’s feud

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Donald Trump has reportedly signaled to his top advisers that he is dissatisfied with and unlikely to accept Iran’s latest proposal to end the war, which would reopen the strait of Hormuz and leave discussion of Iran’s nuclear program for a later date.

Two people familiar with the matter told CNN that Trump conveyed his views during yesterday’s meeting with top national security aides where the Iranian proposal was discussed. One of the people said Trump was not likely to accept the plan, which was sent to the US in the last few days.

What I will reiterate is that the president’s red lines with respect to Iran have been made very, very clear, not just to the American public, but also to them as well.

I wouldn’t say they’re considering it. I would just say that there was a discussion this morning that I don’t want to get ahead of, and you’ll hear directly from the president, I’m sure, on this topic.

Royals pose for photographs with president and first lady at start of state visit before heading inside for private tea

King Charles and Queen Camilla arrived at the White House on Monday for a state visit in Washington, a city still rattled by a weekend shooting and a transatlantic alliance showing fresh signs of strain.

British flags could be seen lining lamp-posts outside the White House, where Donald Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, greeted Charles and Camilla with handshakes. The four appeared to exchange pleasantries and posed for several photographs before heading inside the White House for a private tea.

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Here’s more about the timing of King Charles’s visit today with Donald Trump at the White House.

According to Trump’s official schedule, the president will greet King Charles and Queen Camilla at the White House at 4.15pm ET. Shortly after, they’ll have tea and then tour a beehive at the White House.

When it comes to scandal, seeing is believing – which is why these images caused such a stir

Words can tell a story, but it’s pictures that will make you believe in it. Such is the power of a photograph; the ability to strip away illusions, to illuminate something hidden, and sometimes force us to accept unpalatable truths. When it comes to scandal, seeing is believing – occasionally even to the point that a picture changes the course of history.

How might life have been different for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor had he not been photographed clutching the midriff of the 17-year-old girl he would later claim he had never met? Without this haunting triptych of the former prince, the late Virginia Giuffre and Jeffrey Epstein’s fixer, Ghislaine Maxwell, hovering in the background, there would have been nothing physical to connect the then prince with a trafficking victim. Though for years Andrew’s friends insisted that the photograph must have been doctored, buried within the Epstein files recently released by the US Department of Justice is a note from Maxwell that appears to confirm it is real.

Visit with Camilla to go ahead in late April despite calls for delay over conflict and Trump-Starmer tensions

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King Charles will go ahead with a state visit to the US in April, Buckingham Palace has confirmed, despite some politicians saying the trip will be a “humiliation” while Donald Trump’s war with Iran is ongoing.

MPs have privately expressed concerns there is potential to embarrass the king if the US president continues his criticisms of the UK’s armed forces before or during the trip.

Queen tells reading campaign that listening counts too – and the publishing industry increasingly agrees

Queen Camilla has met many disreputable characters in her time as a royal, but her encounter this week with two celebrity reprobates was at least for a good cause. The queen has appeared in the Beano alongside its celebrated bad boy Dennis the Menace and his dog, Gnasher, as part of a campaign to promote reading.

It wasn’t the cartoon Camilla’s waspish waist that captured the headlines (“I wish,” she said of her comic strip avatar), but what she had to say while encouraging the tween menace to “go all in” for reading: “Comics and audiobooks count too!”

The great maverick image-maker, who was praised for inventing ‘result-wear’ yet only staged six shows, was adored by stars and Queen Camilla – and cut Mick Jagger’s Gimme Shelter trousers in his first job

Antony Price, the maverick British designer and theatrical “image maker” has died aged 80. He was among the first to combine music, theatre and fashion, helping to craft Roxy Music’s glam rock aesthetic and designing Duran Duran’s yacht rock tailoring a decade later. More recently, he became Queen Camilla’s go-to designer.

Often described as the greatest designer you’ve never heard of, Price only ever staged six shows – or “fashion extravaganzas” – in his 55-year career but just last month returned to the London catwalk for the first time in more than 30 years with a show in collaboration with 16Arlington. There, Lily Allen created headlines by modelling a black velvet “revenge dress”.

Monarch also pledged both nations’ support for Ukraine as he welcomed German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier

The UK and Germany are ready to “bolster Europe” against the threat of further Russian aggression and both nations “stand” with Ukraine, King Charles said as he welcomed the German president.

The visit comes at a difficult time for Europe in the face of Russia’s war in Ukraine, and will aim to underscore the Kensington treaty signed in July – the first formal pact between the UK and Germany since the second world war – which sets out plans for closer cooperation on migration, defence, trade and education.