Londoners go to the polls in mayoral elections for Olympic city

LONDON -- London's voters went to the polls Thursday to choose their next mayor from among seven candidates in what has largely become a clash between two oversized personalities: extroverted Conservative incumbent Boris Johnson and his archrival, combative Labor Party politician Ken Livingstone, who became the city's first elected mayor in 2000.

Local elections were going on across Britain, but the eye-catching show was the fight for London’s leader. With the city this summer hosting the Olympic Games and Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations amid rising prices, unemployment, housing shortages and social benefit cuts, the future mayor faces an uphill task. Among the challenges: regulating policies and budgets for the city’s police, transportation and emergency services, education, housing and business development.

Latest polls by market research company YouGov put Johnson ahead with 53% of the vote to Livingstone's 47%, a contrast to national polls that show the Conservatives under Prime Minister David Cameron lagging well behind the opposition Labor Party.

Results in London were not expected to be announced until Friday.

British police arrest 2 in slaying of girl found near royal estate

LONDON -- British police on Tuesday announced the arrest of two men suspected of killing a teenager whose body was discovered in January near Queen Elizabeth II’s Sandringham mansion, about 100 miles north of London.

The two men, ages 28 and 31, were arrested in the city of King’s Lynn in the east coast county of Norfolk. Their identities were not immediately released.

The decomposed body of Alisa Dmitrijeva, 17, a Latvia native who moved to England with her family in 2009, was found New Year's Day by a dog walker in woodland used by royal hunting parties just a mile from the queen's rural retreat.

The arrests came three months after painstaking forensic investigations and questioning, which included interviews with staff from the royal estate by police from Norfolk and neighboring Cambridgeshire and  appeals for information on websites and posters in Latvian, Lithuanian and Russian.

The last reported sightings of Dmitrijeva were in a car parked on a Norfolk beach. Police found the car several weeks ago and were able to search it for further clues.

The 20,000-acre Sandringham estate is a favorite royal vacation residence where the queen and her family were celebrating Christmas and New Year when the gruesome discovery was made just a few hundred yards from the stud farm where the queen's horses are stabled.

The queen rides often in the surrounding parkland and much of the park and woods are open to the public.

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King of Spain says he's sorry for going on elephant hunt

MADRID -- The king of Spain offered an unprecedented apology Wednesday for going on an elephant-hunting safari in Africa while his subjects struggle with recession and high unemployment at home. 

The Spanish public only found out about last week's Botswana jaunt after King Juan Carlos, 74, fell and broke his hip while getting out of bed Friday and had to be airlifted home for hip-replacement surgery the next day. By law, the king is required to inform the government of his whereabouts, but it's unclear whether he did that, or whether he specified the nature of his Africa trip. 

He emerged from his hospital room Wednesday on crutches, to a scrum of photographers and reporters. He moved slowly and did not smile.

"I'm very sorry," the monarch said, blinking in the light of flashbulbs and TV cameras. "I made a mistake and it won't happen again." 

He appeared to be wearing pancake makeup to cover his pallor. Juan Carlos thanked well-wishers for their support and said he was feeling "much better." He was later discharged from the hospital. 

It was a rare "Lo siento" from the Spanish monarch, who holds a largely symbolic position but garners wide respect from across Spain's political spectrum. He was hand-picked by Gen. Francisco Franco to lead Spain after the military dictator's 1975 death, and is credited with soothing tensions in the country's transition to democracy and with averting a military coup in 1981.

It's too early to tell whether the royal apology will ease popular anger against the king, who has faced scathing criticism from animal rights groups and from ordinary Spaniards upset about the cost of his travels. While the royal palace did not issue figures, the newspaper El País estimated the cost of his one-week hunt in Botswana to be nearly $58,000 -- more than twice the average annual salary in Spain. In general, the king's expenses are borne by the state.

"That's a lot of money!" said Roy Alexander Bouzas, 22, a college student who was eating lunch with his girlfriend not far from the king's hospital in downtown Madrid. "The king has even been one to remind us that all the people in Spain need to make efforts and sacrifices [in the economic crisis], and he doesn't do anything."

Juan Carlos had recently spoken out about Spain's recession, urging Spanish politicians to be sensitive and think about their own behavior as a demonstration of modesty. He also said he often loses sleep over Spain's youth unemployment rate, which is more than 50%. The overall jobless rate is 24%. 

"So I think that was all lies," said Bouzas. "Because he's doing what he wants at every moment."

In addition to his royal duties, Juan Carlos serves as honorary president of the World Wildlife Fund in Spain. The group has fielded hundreds of complaints, and its director has requested an audience with the king, once he recovers from surgery.

 

"It's something shameful! We're completely opposed to hunting," said Javier Moreno, a spokesman for Igualdad Animal, an animal-rights group that organized a small protest outside the king's hospital earlier this week. "The indignation that this has caused ... in a way it could be something positive, awakening people to what's happening in this country, and with animal rights."

This has been a tough year for Spain's royal family. The king's son-in-law, Uñaki Urdangarín, is under investigation for allegedly embezzling public money in a corruption scandal. Another probe was opened last week into the alleged use of firearms by a minor after the king's 13-year-old grandson, Felipe Juan Froilán, shot himself in the foot -- literally.

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Photo: King Juan Carlos of Spain leaves the hospital Wednesday after undergoing hip-replacement surgery, which he needed after a fall on a controversial hunting trip in Africa. Credit: Carlos Alvarez / Getty Images

A British royal watcher's triple crown

REPORTING FROM LONDON -- They are the woman who would be queen, the woman who will be queen and the woman who is the queen.

Central London on Thursday was the scene of the first joint public appearance by Elizabeth Windsor, Camilla Parker Bowles and Kate Middleton -- or, as they're more formally known, Queen Elizabeth II, the Duchess of Cornwall and the Duchess of Cambridge, respectively. The three women stopped in for tea and a tour of the posh Piccadilly store Fortnum & Mason, purveyor of fine foods to the rich and famous, and to tourists.

The visit was an official event on the royal calendar, not just an unannounced drop-in for a quick break from the rigors of life at Buckingham Palace down the street.

The queen is celebrating her diamond jubilee this year, marking 60 years on the throne. The last British monarch to reach that milestone was her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, in 1897.

Parker Bowles, the Duchess of Cornwall, is married to Prince Charles, the first in line to the throne. But many royal watchers here say that, despite her private aspirations, it's unlikely she will ever be designated "Queen" Camilla once her husband is crowned king, since both of them are remarried divorcés.

Middleton, on the other hand, will almost certainly become Queen Catherine one day, when Prince William, whom she married last year, ascends the throne (he is second in line). The last few months have been a coming-out of sorts for the 30-year-old Duchess of Cambridge, who has begun to make more official public appearances, including some without her husband. Also, she got a puppy.

At Fortnum & Mason, the three generations of royals were greeted by well-wishers and a few protesters against foie gras. They met members of the British military and were presented with Fortnum & Mason's famous picnic hampers, which, as a BBC news presenter assured an anxious nation, "I'm delighted to report did contain dog biscuits along with delicacies for humans."

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Photo: Kate Middleton, the duchess of Cambridge, left, and Camilla Parker Bowles, the duchess of Cornwall, flank Queen Elizabeth II on the three women's first joint public appearance in central London on Thursday. Credit: Ian Gavan / Getty Images