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Philip to remain in hospital for treatment
The Duke of Edinburgh is expected to remain in hospital for “several days” as he continues to receive treatment for an infection, Buckingham Palace has confirmed. The Palace said Philip, 99, was “comfortable and responding to treatment” but “is not expected to leave hospital for several days”. Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, said his grandfather was “OK” when asked about the duke’s health during a visit to a vaccination centre in Norfolk on Monday.
Turn the other cheek, mistletoe is a parasite
Mistletoe is a parasite and has an unusual feeding strategy, new research suggests. Like other plants, mistletoe can use sunlight to create its own food, but it prefers to siphon water and nutrients from other
trees and shrubs, using false roots to invade its hosts.
University of California Riverside ecologist Paul Nabity said: “Plants are autotrophic, they make their own food. Humans are heterotrophic, we eat it. Mistletoe are mostly heterotrophic, but they can switch if they want to. They seem to know when they’re attacking the same host, and can reduce the virulence of their attack.” The Christmas mistletoe is a European species that tends to attack apple and other hardwood trees in central California.
Eighteen rescued from back of lorry
Police have rescued 18 people from the back of a refrigerated lorry at a service station on the A1M near Peterborough. Cambridgeshire Police said they received a call from the driver of the HGV at about 11.30am yesterday after he noticed there were people on board. Officers went to the lorry, at Haddon services, and found nobody was injured. The force said the people’s welfare will be handled by the immigration services.
Men convicted of cocaine smuggling appeal sentences
Two members of a group known as the Freshwater Five, who were jailed for trying to smuggle 250kg of cocaine into the UK, told the Court of Appeal yesterday that it was “simply impossible” for them to have collected the drugs from the English Channel. Jonathan Beere, 51, and Daniel Payne, 46, were jailed for 24 and 18 years respectively for conspiracy to import £53m of cocaine into the UK, via Freshwater Bay, off the coast of the Isle of Wight, in May 2010.
Prosecutors said Payne and his three co-defendants collected the drugs in a fishing boat, the Galwad-YMor, which was deposited in the Channel by a container ship sailing from Brazil, the Oriane. Beere was said to have acted as a liaison between Jamie Green, the skipper of the Galwad, who was also jailed for 24 years, and those organising the smuggling. Kingston Crown Court heard the Galwad crossed the path of the Oriane and then slowed down to collect the cocaine by “coopering”, where goods are transferred from one vessel to another at sea. But Beere and Payne say new radar evidence, which “finally emerged” more than seven years after their trial in 2011, shows that “the Galwad never crossed behind the Oriane”. Opening their appeals at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Joel Bennathan QC said the new data “transforms the picture that was presented to the jury”. The Crown argues that their convictions are still safe and their submissions opposing the appeals are expected to begin tomorrow.