LONDON (AP) — It was Scotland on parade. Bagpipes, kilts, drums and a Shetland pony named Corporal Cruachan IV marched down Edinburgh’s Royal Mile on Wednesday to honor King Charles III.

Two months after his lavish coronation at Westminster Abbey in London, Scotland hosted its own event to mark the new monarch’s accession to the throne.

While Charles and Queen Camilla weren’t crowned a second time, the new king was presented with the Honors of Scotland — the crown, scepter and sword of state — items he received with reverence during a service at St. Giles’ Cathedral. The Stone of Destiny, an important symbol of Scottish identity, was also moved to the cathedral for the festivities.

The presence of these icons of Scotland’s nationhood is a mark of respect for a country that is fiercely proud of its history and where the desire of some for independence has never died, even though it has been bound to England and the United Kingdom since 1707. Scotland’s national government is led by the Scottish National Party, which is calling for a second independence referendum.

“It’s not a coronation,’’ said George Gross, an expert in coronations at King’s College London. ‘’But it’s very symbolic in that Scotland has its own identity.’’

Wednesday’s events in Edinburgh were a continuation of Charles’ effort to cement ties throughout the United Kingdom as he tries to show that the 1,000-year-old monarchy remains relevant in modern Britain. Soon after the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, last September, Charles visited Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales before attending the state funeral in London.

Just as during May’s coronation ceremony, Wednesday’s events linked historic traditions with nods to the multicultural nature of Britain today. The choir sang a psalm in Gaelic and passages of the New Testament were read in Scots, as the church service honored two of Scotland’s historic languages. Non-Christian leaders offered prayers or messages of support, reflecting the monarch’s longtime interest in interfaith issues.

Charles was also presented with a new sword made by Scottish artisans and named after Elizabeth. The sword was in place of the current sword of state, which was made in 1507 and was considered too fragile for use in the ceremony.

But it was the sermon of the Right Reverend Sally Foster-Fulton, moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, who underscored Charles’ devotion to protecting the environment.

Society will be on the right track when people understand that “the Heavens and Earth” are not commodities or possessions, she told the congregation.

“Blessed are we, on the right track are we, when we understand that our children do not inherit this Earth from us — we have borrowed it from them,” she said. “And it is our duty to return it still singing and surging and bathing, not baking to a crisp.”

Thousands lined Edinburgh’s Royal Mile to watch the parade and cheer the king and queen as they traveled to and from the cathedral under sparkling sunny skies.

But not everyone was celebrating as people throughout the U.K. face a cost-of-living crisis fueled by high food and energy costs.

Our Republic, which campaigns for an elected head of state in Scotland, staged a protest outside the Scottish parliament, and shouts of ’’Not our king″ were picked up by microphones as Charles left the cathedral.

“The vast majority of Scotland didn’t care to celebrate the coronation in May, with support for the monarchy at an all-time low in Scotland,” the group said in a statement. “Charles’ perpetual need to celebrate his reign, with all the pomp and pageantry it requires, is a spit in the face to the people struggling with the cost of living.”

The coronation festivities began in the early afternoon with a People’s Procession that traveled down the Royal Mile from Edinburgh Castle to the cathedral. It included more than 100 people representing charities and public service groups, such as the Scottish Ambulance Service, the Royal Scottish Highland Games Association and the Girls’ Brigade.

At its head was Shetland pony Corporal Cruachan IV, regimental mascot of the Royal Regiment of Scotland.

The Honors of Scotland, the country’s crown jewels, followed behind escorted by police and military units.

Soon after, Charles and Camilla left the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the king’s official residence in Edinburgh, which sits at the opposite end of the Royal Mile. They traveled to the service behind the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiments and a collection of military bands.

The pageantry gave royal fans a chance to celebrate Charles’ coronation while also paying homage to Scotland’s unique history.

Historically an independent country, Scotland was first linked to England in 1603 after the death of Queen Elizabeth I. Because the queen had no children, the crown passed to her cousin James VI who was already king of Scotland, uniting the two countries under a shared sovereign.

But Scotland remained independent until 1707 when lawmakers in both countries approved the Act of Union, which created the United Kingdom.

The public festivities were also deeply personal for Charles, who received the crown of Scotland on roughly the same spot where he stood vigil last year, watching over his mother’s coffin with the same crown resting on its lid.

“I think it would be extraordinary if that didn’t have an impact on him or on any human being,” said Gross, a visiting research fellow in theology at King’s College London.

“It’s very important in bringing the union together, just as after his mother died, after the late queen died, he did various services around the Union, Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland, so on. So he will be doing the same here. This is bringing things together.”

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Last month, the Recording Academy announced a series of changes to the Grammy Awards to better reflect an evolving music industry. Of those newly instituted guidelines, protocols involving technological advancements in machine learning sparked headlines: “Only human creators” could win the music industry’s highest honor in a decision aimed at the use of artificial intelligence in popular music.

“A work that contains no human authorship is not eligible in any category,” the rules read in part.

As the music industry continues to come to terms with this new technology, so too will the Grammys, says Recording Academy CEO and President Harvey Mason jr.

“Here’s the super easy, headline statement: AI, or music that contains AI-created elements is absolutely eligible for entry and for consideration for Grammy nomination. Period,” Mason told The Associated Press. “What’s not going to happen is we are not going to give a Grammy or Grammy nomination to the AI portion.”

If an AI or voice modeling program performs the lead vocal on a song, the track would be eligible in a songwriting category, for example, but not a performance category, because “what is performing is not human creation,” he explains. “Conversely, if a song was sung by an actual human in the studio, and they did all the performing, but AI wrote the lyric or the track, the song would not be eligible in a composition or a songwriting category.”

“As long as the human is contributing in a more than de minimis amount, which to us means a meaningful way, they are and will always be considered for a nomination or a win,” he continued. “We don’t want to see technology replace human creativity. We want to make sure technology is enhancing, embellishing, or additive to human creativity. So that’s why we took this particular stand in this award cycle.”

The Recording Academy has long considered setting rules related to AI following the popularity of new songs created alongside AI technology: David Guetta’s “Emin-AI-em”, the AI -compositions of TikTok user @ghostwriter977, Grimes’ voice modeling AI software.

In order to establish their AI guidelines, the Recording Academy engaged in extensive research, including holding tech summits.

“I’ve met with the copyright office. We’ve talked about the future and what that looks like on a federal level and the legislative level,” Mason said, adding that AI conversations “really came to a head in the last six months.”

The new Grammy AI protocols were announced three days after Paul McCartney shared that “the last Beatles record” had been composed using artificial intelligence to extract John Lennon’s voice from an old demo. Without knowing the extent of the technology, Mason couldn’t confirm or deny whether the song would be eligible for a Grammy nomination.

“We’ll see what it turns out to be,” he said. “But I would imagine from the early descriptions that I’ve heard there would be components of the creation that would be absolutely eligible.”

So, can Grammy viewers expect to see work at least partially created with AI nominated for an award as early as next year?

It’s impossible to predict what is submitted. But as Mason affirms, “people are using the technology. I’m imagining it’s going to be involved in a lot of records a lot of songs this year, so we’ll see if some of them get nominated or not, but I’m sure there’ll be some that will be submitted.”

The 2024 Grammy Awards will return to Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena on Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024, airing live on CBS and livestreamed on Paramount+.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of summer travelers suffered through another day of delayed and canceled flights Wednesday, a troubling glimpse into what could happen over the long July 4 holiday weekend as airlines struggle to keep up with surging numbers of passengers.

By early evening on the East Coast, nearly 5,800 U.S. flights had been delayed and 1,000 more were canceled, according to FlightAware.

United Airlines, which depends on the airport in Newark, New Jersey, canceled the most flights among U.S. airlines for a fifth straight day.

“We’re beginning to see improvement across our operation,” United said in a statement Wednesday night. “As our operation improves in the days ahead, we will be on track to restore our operation for the holiday weekend.”

The worst disruptions continued to be along the East Coast, which has been pummeled by thunderstorms this week. The Federal Aviation Administration temporarily held up Boston-bound flights on Wednesday. It stopped flights to all three major airports in the New York City area and two near Washington, D.C., at times Tuesday.

Huge crowds, bad weather, inability of some airline crews to reach their scheduling offices — even a Delta jet that made a belly landing in Charlotte, North Carolina — all contributed to the mess.

And it could be just the storm before the storm: The FAA predicted that Thursday would be the heaviest travel day over the July 4 holiday period. On top of that, some airline planes may be unable to fly in bad weather starting this weekend because of possible interference with 5G wireless service.

Travel has picked up steadily every year since bottoming out during the pandemic. For the past week, about 2.6 million people a day on average have been flying in the United States, about 2% more than in the same period during pre-pandemic 2019, according to Transportation Security Administration figures.

The number of air travelers could set a pandemic-era record over the holiday weekend. The FAA expects Thursday to be the busiest, with more than 52,500 total flights.

People whose travel plans were disrupted took to social media to vent against the airlines. Some swore they would never fly again on whichever airline had done them wrong.

Tia Hudson was back at Newark Liberty International Airport for the fourth straight day, trying to catch a United Airlines flight home to Louisiana.

“My flight has been canceled like five times now. I slept at the airport two nights, I booked two hotels, I spent over $700 since I’ve been here and they said they’re not going to reimburse me because it’s weather-related,” she said. “It’s not weather-related. It’s a shortage of pilots and attendants.”

Hudson missed her mother’s wedding and caused her mother to skip her own honeymoon to pick up Tia at the airport near Dallas – only for the flight to be canceled.

On top of that, Hudson’s bags were lost.

“I just want to get away from this airport, but they say nobody is leaving until Saturday,” she said.

At Logan Airport in Boston, pharmaceutical company manager Rui Loureiro had to scrap plans to spend the rest of the week meeting clients on the West Coast when his flight to San Francisco was canceled. United told him the soonest he could get on another flight was Friday, and didn’t offer to pay for a hotel room. He plans to fly home to Portugal instead – or at least give it a try.

“I am a little bit stressed, disappointed,” Loureiro said. “People were waiting for me. We had things arranged to do. Now I have to go back and rebook everything and come again another time.”

By early Wednesday evening, Chicago-based United had canceled more than 550 flights — one-fifth of its schedule — and 1,200 others were late. The airline vowed to reduce cancellations — and added it reduced the backlog of stranded bags in Newark by 30% since Tuesday. New York-based JetBlue canceled nearly one in 10 flights.

If large numbers of passengers are stranded or delayed this weekend, expect federal officials and the airlines to blame each other for the mess.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, whose department includes the FAA, has been beating up on the airlines for more than a year. He has accused them of failing to live up to reasonable standards of customer service and suggested that they are scheduling more flights than they can handle.

The airlines are punching back.

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby blamed a shortage of federal air traffic controllers for massive disruptions last weekend at its Newark hub.

“We estimate that over 150,000 customers on United alone were impacted this weekend because of FAA staffing issues and their ability to manage traffic,” Kirby wrote in a memo to employees on Monday night.

The Association of Flight Attendants, which represents United’s cabin crews, said United was contributing to the situation. The union said employees were waiting three hours or longer when calling a crew-scheduling center for assignments because of “limited telephone lines and personnel.”

However, the FAA signaled earlier this year that it could struggle to keep flights moving in New York, the busiest airspace in the nation. Facing a severe shortage of air traffic controllers at a key facility on Long Island, the FAA persuaded airlines to trim their summer schedules to avoid overloading the system.

Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, where American and Southwest are based, took the airlines’ side in a series of tweets about delays at the New York City area’s three big airports.

“Staffing at FAA’s air traffic facilities in NY is at 54%,” Cruz tweeted. “Yet (the Transportation Department) is blaming weather for delays. Nonsense.”

A Transportation Department spokesperson said the agency is working with airlines to fix things, but the combination of high traffic and bad weather reduces the rate at which planes can take off and land safely, leading to delays and canceled flights.

The FAA is training about 3,000 new air traffic controllers, but most of them won’t be ready anytime soon. Last week, the Transportation Department’s inspector general said in a report that the FAA has made only “limited efforts” to adequately staff critical air traffic control centers and lacks a plan to tackle the problem.

Last week, Buttigieg issued a new warning to airlines, telling them that planes that aren’t outfitted with new radio altimeters — devices that measure the height of a plane above the ground — won’t be allowed to operate in limited visibility starting this Saturday because of potential interference from new 5G wireless service.

American, United, Southwest, Alaska and Frontier say all of their planes have been retrofitted, but Delta Air Lines still has about 190 planes waiting to be updated because its supplier doesn’t have enough altimeters. Delta said it will schedule those planes to avoid landing where the weather might be bad to limit disruptions.

Smaller airlines that operate regional flights could also be affected by the radio interference issue, as could flights operated to the United States by foreign carriers.