William And Catherine To Visit California

Prince William and his new bride are to visit California later this summer, after their tour of Canada.

The newly married Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will go to the west coast for a two-day trip between July 8 and July 10, St James's Palace said.

It is the first time William has been to the US on an official visit and Kate's first-ever trip there.

The Prince returned to his job as an RAF search and rescue helicopter pilot this week after marrying Kate on Friday in Westminster Abbey at a ceremony watched by some two billion people around the world.

The couple will begin their first official overseas trip as a married couple by touring Canada from June 30 to July 8.

William's father, Prince Charles, meanwhile, has just ended a visit to the US with a meeting with President Barack Obama.

During the meeting, the President thanked the Prince of Wales for Britain's military contributions to the conflicts in Afghanistan and Libya and "warmly welcomed" his support for environmental concerns, sustainable food production and halting deforestation.

The Prince was in town to take part in a conference at Georgetown University on the future of food. In his keynote speech, Charles warned that unsustainable farming was overtaxing nature and leading the world towards a food crisis.

"In some cases, we are pushing nature's life-support systems so far they are struggling to cope with what we ask of them," the long-time advocate for sustainable food production said at the Future of Food conference.

Less than 24 hours earlier, Charles had visited the Common Good City Farm in a poor part of Washington where he had learned about the project's aim to encourage city dwellers to enjoy growing their own food and, through that, to have access to fresh, healthy food that will be a step towards cutting obesity.

A third of LeDroit Park residents live in poverty, and one in five is overweight, partly because of the lack of affordable fresh produce in many US inner cities.

Common Good City Farm is trying to change that. Since the farm opened four years ago, it has provided more than 400 bags of fresh produce to low-income families in Washington and taught several thousand city dwellers how to grow fruit and vegetables.

The Prince good-naturedly accepted a lack of formality as he answered one person's call of "Yo, Charles! Over here!" to shake hands with well-wishers who wanted to meet him.