With pomp but no queen, UK govt sets out the year’s agenda

Britain's Prince Charles sits by the The Imperial State Crown in the House of Lords Chamber, during the State Opening of Parliament, in the Houses of Parliament, in London, Tuesday, May 10, 2022. Britain’s Conservative government made sweeping promises to cut crime, improve health care and revive the pandemic-scarred economy as it laid the laws it plans in the next year in a tradition-steeped ceremony known as the Queen’s Speech -- but without a key player, Queen Elizabeth II, absent for the first time in six decades. The 96-year-old monarch pulled out of the ceremonial State Opening of Parliament because of what Buckingham Palace calls “episodic mobility issues.” Her son and heir, Prince Charles, stood in, rattling through a short speech laying out 38 bills the government plans to pass. (Ben Stansall/Pool Photo via AP)