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The duke of edinburgh has returned to sandringham in time for christmas after spending four nights in hospital. Prince philip walked out of the king edward vii hospital in Central London, and got into a car before being driven away. He travelled to the hospital on friday as a precautionary measure. Buckingham palace say his four night stay was for observation and treatment. A statement from Buckingham Palace said the duke of edinburgh has today left hospital after being discharged by his doctor and is now back at sandringham. It went on to say his Royal Highness would like to thank everyone who sent their good wishes. In a moment we will be speaking to our correspondent, charlotte gallagher, who is at sandringham. But first, lets go tojohn mcmanus who is in Central London, outside the hospital where Prince Philip was receiving treatment. We still dont know why he was in hospital but people will be relieved to see him walking out himself. Unsurprisingly, the king edward vii hospital behind me state very quiet about the reason for his visit. They say they do not comment on any patient. The palace will also not diebold is what brought Prince Philip to this hospital. He lives on friday and left this morning. He was able to walk out and get into the range rover, say goodbye to staff and thank them and then went on his way to sandringham tojoin and thank them and then went on his way to sandringham to join the rest of the royalfamily. We do know way to sandringham to join the rest of the royal family. We do know that at the age of 98 he has suffered some Health Difficulties over the last four years. If years ago he had a hip replacement operation. At one point he had a bladder infection, he also had a stent for a coronary problem if you use it all. At that age its probably not surprising that Prince Charles gave some well wishes yesterday when he was asked. When asked about his father, he said that things at his age didnt work when they should do. The duke now left hospital and on his way to spend christmas with his family. Let us spend christmas with his family. Let us go to charlotte who is at sandringham. We did was phone in . Yes, the helicopter came in recently and we believe that Prince Philip was inside after being flown back from Central London where he was being treated. Huge relief from the royal family. Also from the staff that worked on the estate. One person said that they often see Prince Philip Walking Around and he feels like part of their family as well, so they were worried about him as well. The queen is here. She arrived on friday and the rest of the royal family were expecting them to arise throughout the day. They arrived in order of seniority so the junior members tend to arrive earlier in the day. The more senior members like Prince Charles and Prince William will arrive later. One ecstasy them tomorrow on Christmas Morning as the always attend a Church Service on the sandringham estate. We do not know if Prince Philip will be there because he has just been discharged and he was knocked there last year. He retired from duty in 2017. We are expecting Prince George and Princess Charlotte to attend the service for the first time with their parents, Prince William and. Many people will be very excited to see them here. They are expecting 6000 well wishers to come down tomorrow morning and meet the royalfamily. Despite a difficult and bumpy year, as said by the queen, there is still so as said by the queen, there is still so much interest in the royalfamily here in britain. They will be queueing up from early errors in the morning at sandringham in order to see the royals go to church. The queen will use her Christmas Day message to say that 2019 has been quite bumpy. It comes after a year of intense political debate over brexit, as well as a number of personal events affecting the royal family. Her majesty said, the path of course is not always smooth and may at times this year have felt quite bumpy, but small steps can make a world of difference. Joining me now is royal correspondent and historian. The people are going to see the duke of edinburgh packed with the queen for christmas. Yes, absolutely. Certainly a decision was going to be made today and he would not have travelled back tomorrow. For the royalfamily, travelled back tomorrow. For the royal family, Christmas Eve travelled back tomorrow. For the royalfamily, Christmas Eve is a bigger event than Christmas Day. They tend to gather together around tea time. The exchange presents, which are laid out, and then we have a black tie dinner. Before church at 11 oclock tomorrow morning. There will be great relief among the family that Prince Philip will be joining them. It is of course if pretty full fa m ily joining them. It is of course if pretty full family gathering, notable exceptions being the duke and duchess of sussex with their baby archie who are in the united states. All of the queen and prince phillips children, including Prince Andrew, and amidst all the spectators looking for a glimpse of Prince George and Princess Charlotte tomorrow, there will also be comment at interest in Prince Andrew, how you might travel to church, whether he will accompany the queen directly if she is driven there, and indeed whether he does it walkabout. I suspect he will not but to nosthat are stopping to watch tomorrow too. Presumably the powers no how prince and you will appear, if he does, will he be supported by his family ata time will he be supported by his family at a time of serious questions . Absolutely, it will be thinking about how this should be managed, whom he should be accompanied by or be accompanied with. Clearly it will be accompanied with. Clearly it will bea be accompanied with. Clearly it will be a presentation of a united front. The royal family will be firm, as the queen regards, will absolutely stick together. I am sure over dinner this evening, and into tomorrow, there will be some rather tense conversations exchanged and it will be interesting. Well never know quite how Prince Andrew will explain himself to his brothers and sister and, of course, to his pa rents. Sister and, of course, to his parents. The question about harry and meghan. We have seen a photograph of the queen, but there are no pictures of harry and meghan on her desk this time. No, exactly. You can read into that that simply she is focused on herfather and then the direct heirs to the throne. Certainly, yes, people will read into that something. The queen holds prince harry in great affection. She is an adoring grandmother and he is very close to her but there is no doubt that the duke and duchess have attempted to forge their own path this year. The high point is the birth of archie but thereafter, by distancing themselves from the duke and duchess of cambridge, but also the royal family as a home, and duchess of cambridge, but also the royalfamily as a home, managing their own media relationships and note making the decision to spend christmas with meghans mother in the states. There is a christmas ca rd the states. There is a Christmas Card they have released with their young son today. People will also perhaps wonder if this should be at home as they have ageing and unwell grandparents . It is a shame not to see them altogether. But clearly we wa nted see them altogether. But clearly we wanted some time out and will step away from public life altogether . We have to remember, of course, that the duke and duchess of cambridge have spent christmases with the Middleton Family over time. Prince harry and meghan were at sandringham last year. Meghan will also have her first christmas with archie and we wa nt first christmas with archie and we want that to be with her mother. On that basis, many can empathise with the pressures of work to spend family christmas. In that sense, the duke and duchess are the same as the rest of us. Despite what the queen is acknowledging as a bumpy year, whether it is in due to the nation with brexit or personal matters for the royalfamily, how much support is there for the royal family in this country . Yes, i think it is a lwa ys this country . Yes, i think it is always important to distinguish between the queen, the monarchy and the royal family. I between the queen, the monarchy and the royalfamily. I think the queen remains in high affection and a sense of Great Respect for her, even among those people who would perhaps prefer the end of the monarchy and the republic. I think, prefer the end of the monarchy and the republic. Ithink, really, only time will tell and it wont be until the queen is no longer with us as we really get an idea of what the place of the monarchy is and how people regard it. For many others, we have known no other moloch than the queen. The queen and the monarchy is absolutely synonymous. Whether the affection for the monarchy will remain after her passing remains to be seen. The indications are is that when Prince Charles becomes king it will be a very much slimmed down poor working group of royals, basically himself and camilla and Prince William and prince harry and their respective waves. The wider family will not be as prominent as they have been. In that sense, it will try and keep the potential negative influences, perhaps like Prince Andrew, they will try to protect and insulate the monarchy from that. Thank you very much. Borisjohnson and Jeremy Corbyn have thanked nhs staff and other Public Servants who work through the holidays in their christmas messages. The Prime Minister also said the uk stood in solidarity with christians around the world who faced persecution for their beliefs. Mr corbyn said it had been a difficult year for many but christmas was a chance to reflect on hopes for a better world. This around 2000 volunteer firefighters will spend their Christmas Day tackling australias bushfires as the crisis continues. The countrys Prime Minister has pledged more support amid criticism from some unpaid workers. Nine people have died after more than 84 fires devastated homes and businesses. One of the unpaid workers from from the New South Wales Rural Fire Service who will spend Christmas Day on the front line is angela burford, who spoke to the us earlier. I will bejoining around 2000 other volu nteers i will bejoining around 2000 other volu nteers across i will bejoining around 2000 other volunteers across New South Wales fighting the fires. We have about 80 bushfires burning across the state so it has been a long summerfor hours so far and we are only about half way through. A number of others have put up a hand to work on Christmas Day because for us it is just another day working on these fires. It is what we do and we love what we do and we do it for the community. It is a difficultjob and we are lucky to have 70,000 volu nteers across we are lucky to have 70,000 volunteers across New South Wales. It isa volunteers across New South Wales. It is a very important bit of work to be done, particularly this week as we have a low in the weather. We have got cooler temperatures and the winds have died down a bit. We have a chance to go in and do some very important containment work before things start to heat up again. Some of these very large fires are going to be potentially posing a risk to communities next week. We give our time wherever we can. We have all got thejobs time wherever we can. We have all got the jobs and we are volunteer at our local fire station and luckily enough, where i volunteer we do not have any large fires threatening towns near us. So our truck will be travelling to and a half hours far down just west of sydney to help out on the files there. We give up our time to train, we train throughout the year and we go to incident calls 365 days a year, whether that be pa rt 365 days a year, whether that be part fires are bushfires. We give up part fires are bushfires. We give up ourfree time to do part fires are bushfires. We give up our free time to do that but we are very grateful when our employers give us time off work. Obviously, it has a huge flow on effect throughout the state and certainly for businesses as well when they lose their staff. We are lucky in that a lot of employers are supportive of us lot of employers are supportive of us and they know how important the work we are doing is and often you will see throughout summer and particularly to christmas we are being released from work and, of course, ourfamilies being released from work and, of course, our families see that we can go out and fight these fires. The headlines on bbc news. The duke of edinburgh has left hospital in time to spend christmas with the queen at sandringham. The queen will use her Christmas Day message to say the past year has been quite bumpy , adding that small steps can heal divisions. Thousands of volunteer Fire Fighters will spend Christmas Day battling wildfires that are still ravaging australia. Sport and for a full round up, from the bbc sport centre. The chelsea manager Frank Lampard says its disappoining the spurs boss Jose Mourinho questioned antonio rudigers integrity after he suffered alleged racist abuse during their match at the weekend. Mourinho was referring to rudigers reaction to being kicked by son hueng min. Hung min, who was then was sent off for violent conduct. I think with tony in this incident, when he is having to post after the ghost game about something which isa ghost game about something which is a huge deal, to question his integrity in that time is disappointing for sure. It is pretty universal that certainly what i heard in the commentary and all the post match reflection is that the incident was a red card. I said after the game it was a brutal red card, but it was an instinctive one that was a red card. Alex Oxlade Chamberlain has sustained ankle ligament damage and will miss liverpools games against leicester and wolves 00v the england midfielder between christmas and new year. The england midfielder picked up the injury in qatar during the second half of his sides 1 0 win over flamengo in the Club World Cup final on saturday. Klopp says the club will make a further assessment before determining a return date. The former newcastle and Crystal Palace manager alan pardew has been appointed as the new head coach of dutch side den haag. Pardew has signed a deal until the end of the season and will have chris powell as his assistant. Den haag are currently second bottom in the dutch league. The newjob for powell will not effect his role as a coach with the fa. Ben stokes is a doubt for the first test against south africa on boxing day, his father ged has been taken seriously ill stokes missed training to be with him by his bedside. The ecb say that his father was taken to hospital in johannesburg yesterday where hes in a critical condition. Adam mountford is injohannesburg. Ben stokess father has been admitted to hospital injohannesburg after suffering what is described as after suffering what is described as a serious illness. He remains in a critical in a serious illness. He remains in a critical in condition. He is 64 and was a rugby league player. He was scheduled to play today, ben stokes, but he has gone to his fathers bedside. The solheim cup winner bronte law has welcomed the increase in prize money in the womens game next season. Players on the lpga tour will earn nearly 60 Million Pounds in total, law though says the players must also play their part in developing the sport. An increase in prize money is always good. It gets us that little bit closer to where the men are. good. It gets us that little bit closer to where the men are. I think we have two grow the game ourselves from our side. We cannot really focus too much of what we men are doing. It can encourage more participation on our side and more buzz around the game with more people watching ones golf and thats to go hand in hand. And finally diving in football has been an on going issue for some years now but for two teams in tanzania, they were left with no choice. Players were forced to drop to the ground when a swarm of bees invaded the pitch it led to the match being stopped briefly for a few moments, as players and fans tried to find cover. Play continued and it is a good thing they werent playing the hornets. Boom boom . Thats all the sport for now. Ill have more for you in the next hour. Police in new zealand say they have called off the search for the bodies of two people still missing since the white island volcano eruption earlier this month. The bodies of Hayden Bryan Marshall Inman and 17 year old Winona Jane Langford are thought to be in the water off the island. Winonas parents were also among the 19 People Killed by the eruption. Police said their decision follows extensive shoreline and substantial aerial searches. At least 26 people have died in indonesia when a bus plunged into a ravine. The bus left the city of beng kulu with 50 passengers on board. Rescue teams and volunteers evacuated the survivors, who were trapped on the bus, before taking them to nearby hospitals. Doctors are warning of the dangers posed by small button batteries that can be found in toys, Christmas Lights and musical cards. If swallowed, the batteries can burn through a childs throat in a short period of time. The Child Accident trust says two children a year die in the uk from swallowing the batteries. Our Health Correspondent Dominic Hughes has more. Clear still remembers vividly the events of 2015. At the age of two, her daughter sophie became dangerously close to death when she swallowed a button battery which burnt a hole in her lung. If they swallow one and believe it, it can be fatal and if it wasnt for my Quick Response and getting her up there, within two hours it had already done damage. It is not worth thinking about. The are really dangerous and it can escalate really quickly. This sped up image with ham shows how much damage it can do. So either reacts with the battery to release caustic chemicals. Within a few hours the flesh is really scorched. Doctors say that these batteries should be kept safe. Because children this think these things are sweets, keep them out of reach with a cannot get for them. If they come in toys or Christmas Cards, make sure the are in their and locked away. If anything happens, go to the a e department. Sophie has made a good recovery but clare knows it was a close call and not an experience anyone else should go through. Thousands of children in care are living more than 100 miles from their family and friends in places they have never heard of. Thats according to a report by the childrens commissioner for england. More than 30,000 children in care are placed out of area, which is a 13 increase over five years. While some children are placed further afield for their own safety, to protect them from criminal gangs or sexual predators, many have to move away because of a shortage of local places. The increasing number of children now is really a result of the increasing number of teenagers coming into care. Theyre less likely to go into foster care, more likely to go into childrens homes. The majority of childrens homes are in areas of the country where accommodation is cheaper lincolnshire, the north west, kent. This means they are sent to these places and often moved around. Children tell me not only do they feel they do not know where they are on the map, they do not know how long they will be there, they dont have access to school properly and actually they feel it is some kind of punishment. In basis, you know, a crucial time of growing up, a crucial time where they need school, they need friendships and they need to be able to plan their future. As we all know, it is nearly christmas and one of the highlights for many, will be Christmas Lights outside peoples houses. Millions of children across the world will be looking up at the night sky this evening to get a glimpse of santa claus and his reindeer, but what if he could see your house from the sky . Well, students at the university of leicester may have found the answer, after calculating that in order for a house to be seen from space at christmas it will need to be covered in more than 2600 fairy lights. We spoke to dr Leigh Fletcher who is an associate professor in Planetary Science at the university of leceister to find out more. We all know that this was fairly ridiculous experiment to begin with, and that santa claus already knows where all the good boys and girls live, but we did ask our leicester physics students to do this thought experiment as a kind of Training Exercise for them to hone their reasoning skills, to use the concepts that they have been learning throughout their physics degrees, to apply themselves to this particular challenge which will be a concern, no doubt, for School Children of any age across the globe this morning. That is, will santa be able to see my own home in his sleigh as he is running along . Now, the calculation involves our leicester physics students using their knowledge that they have acquired over the course, such as ideas from space, science and astronomy and how lights propagates away from a very bright source, such as Christmas Lights. We needed to know a bit about the ability of the human eye to resolve small details and do something about the engineering of a light emitting diode, which is the key component of Christmas Lights today. What our students used as a guide was the International Space station. If someone was up there, looking down upon the planet earth at night time, would they be able to see your house with those Christmas Lights on its roof . And they came up with a number of about 2500 Christmas Lights that you would need to be able to be spotted from the International Space station. Does any building, as far as we know, have that number of lights . Well, actually, that number of lights isnt so unreasonable a number. If you look at some of the images that the International Space station is able to acquire, you can see cities and streetlights when looking down from above. One thing i want to point out is that we at the university of leicester are not advocating that you are rushed out to the supermarket now to buy extra lights for your house. Rest assured, santa is clearly magical and will be able to find your house without any problem. There are two reasons, then. Firstly, having so many ways is only going to add to the Climate Emergency that we are all currently facing, but the second reason for us astronomers, is one of high importance, that is to do with light pollution. It is trying to make sure that we budding stargazers can look up into the night sky and still see the objects that we are looking for, including the very special opportunity tonight to look up and sees santa claus and his reindeer as they fly across the night sky on theirjourney around the world. Pilgrims from around the world are gathering in the biblical city of bethlehem to celebrate christmas in the holy land. Hundreds of people watched as palestinian scouts paraded to the sound of drums as Christmas Eve festivities got under way around the church of the nativity. People have been queuing to visit the grotto inside it, which is believed to be the exact site wherejesus was born. The archbishop of the latin patriarch ofjerusalem and the most senior Roman Catholic official in the middle east, is also about to arrive at manger square shortly. You can see lots of youngsters there and the celebrations are happening despite lots of political strain in the region. Now its time for the weather. For Christmas Day, santa claus is going to bring as nice weather. We have some rain around in the morning, which has given us some rainbows. The heaviest of the showers have been across the southern parts of wales and southern england. We will continue for a time across the afternoon. Further north the rain that we had this morning is petering out. It will still be showery, with some bright spells, with temperatures 6 degrees in the north. Tonight we will continue with if you showers, one or two fog patches developing, but really quite a quiet night to come. Temperatures will drop down close to freezing in some spots so that could be a touch of frost first in the morning on the ground. It will be a bright and sunny day. I give them much. The duke of edinburgh has left hospital in time to spend christmas with the queen at sandringham. The queen will use her Christmas Day message to say the past year has been quite bumpy adding that small steps can heal divisions. Thousands of volunteer Fire Fighters will spend Christmas Day battling wildfires that are still ravaging australia. A warning from nhs england to parents keep button batteries the type found in toys, festive lights, and musical Christmas Cards away from children. Now on bbc news, tom burridge revisits of the collapse of travel firm thomas cook and it s far reaching effects on customers and staff. In review 2019 the thomas cook story