King Charles III and Queen Camilla will host Nigeria’s president in the country’s first state visit to the UK in 37 years, Buckingham Palace has announced.

Bola Tinubu and First Lady Oluremi Tinubu have accepted an invitation to be guests of the King at Windsor Castle from 18 to 19 March.

State visits are considered a form of soft-power diplomacy, using the pomp of royal hospitality to strengthen relations with important international partners.

The last Nigerian state visit to the UK took place in 1989, when military ruler Gen Ibrahim Babangida travelled to meet the late Queen Elizabeth II for a four-day trip.

The co-owner of a Colorado funeral home where nearly 200 decaying bodies were found has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for corpse abuse.

Before Jon Hallford was sentenced, he apologised in court and listened to family members describe having nightmares about their loved ones decomposing in his care. They called him a “monster” who should rot in jail.

His ex-wife and co-owner Carie Hallford has pleaded guilty to similar charges and is awaiting sentencing.

The Return to Nature home, in the town of Penrose, Colorado, had given fake ashes to grieving relatives instead of their loved-ones’ remains. Prosecutors said 189 bodies were improperly stored in the building over four years.

The crown of French Empress Eugenie was left crushed after being dropped by fleeing thieves during the raid at the Louvre last October – but is “nearly intact” and can be fully restored, the museum has said.

Raiders stole an estimated 88 million euros (£76m, $104m) in jewels, but left the diamond-studded headpiece belonging to the wife of Napoleon III on their escape route.

The museum has issued the first photographs of the crown since the theft, saying it had been left “badly deformed” after the thieves tried to remove it through a narrow hole they sawed in its glass display case.

The crown is missing one of eight golden eagles that adorned it but retains its 56 emeralds and all but 10 of its 1,354 diamonds.

The heist took place on 19 October and saw the gang use a stolen vehicle-mounted mechanical lift to gain access to the Galerie d’Apollon (Gallery of Apollo) via a balcony close to the River Seine.

Two of the thieves got inside by cutting through the window with power tools. They then threatened the guards, who evacuated the area, and cut through the glass of two display cases housing jewellery that once belonged to French royalty or its imperial rulers.

Prosecutors said the thieves were inside for less than four minutes before making their escape on two scooters waiting outside.

Police have arrested four male suspects who prosecutors allege are the thieves – but the mastermind behind the raid has not been tracked down.

The seven other items of jewellery taken, including a diamond-studded tiara that belonged to Eugenie and necklaces, ear-rings and brooches remain missing.

[BBC]