内容摘要：The King and Queen were then treated to a performance by school pupils before being taken on a tour of some of the district's cultural highlights.

The King and Queen were then treated to a performance by school pupils before being taken on a tour of some of the district's cultural highlights.

He added: "It was really sad. The damage of losing the mines has lasted".Four people are in hospital with serious injuries after a three-vehicle crash in the south of Scotland.

Emergency services were called out to the A745 Castle Douglas to Dalbeattie road near to Allanbank Farm at about 16:25 on Tuesday.The accident involved a white Fiat Multijet motor van, a red Peugeot 207 and a brown Honda CR-V.The road was shut for about 11 hours while police carried out investigations.

Residents of a small village that played a huge part in World War Two will be lining the streets to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day.A memorial service in Matching Green, near Harlow, Essex, is planned for Sunday at the Nissen hut that once acted as a hospital for US airmen.

The village was home to an airfield built for the US 391st Bombardment Group, and it was home to 2,000 men between 1942 and 1945.

Andrew Barnard, chair of the commemorations committee of St Mary's Church, said: "It was just a rural, agricultural village – very typical for this part of East Anglia – and for a period of three years it was transformed."In Montreal, Louis Plouffe is picking up groceries at the city's Jean-Talon market.

He tells the BBC that he thinks the Bloc "defends Quebec's interests well" as an opposition party in Parliament. Still, "it's not being in power", the 65-year-old says, and he wants a government with a strong mandate "ready for the wave that's coming" from the US.And while Mr Plouffe has reservations about the Liberal leader, he believes Mark Carney has come across as credible and confident in interviews. He too will vote for the party.

"Canadian patriotism is on the rise in Quebec", said Émilie Foster, an adjunct professor in politics at Carleton University. "We prefer to be part of Canada instead of being part of the United States, if we have to choose," she says.Sébastien Dallaire, a pollster with Léger, puts it this way: "It's hard to say now is the time to talk about Quebec sovereignty, or now is the time to do things specifically to defend Quebec, when clearly there's a national crisis and everybody is staring not at Ottawa as the adversary, but as Washington as the clear opponent."