Sex of second Royal baby still unknown

THE Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have thanked the public for their warm wishes ahead of the birth of their second child - but they still don't know if it will be a boy or girl.

A HEAVILY pregnant Kate is expected to give birth towards the end of April and for the delivery will return to St Mary's Hospital in Paddington where Prince George was born.

The Duke and Duchess have sent a message saying they are very grateful for the warm wishes they've received from people throughout the UK and around the world over the last few months.

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'Fake relative' claims Germanwings flights

GERMAN police are looking into an allegation that a woman got free flights to the south of France by pretending to be a relative of one of 150 people killed in the Germanwings crash.

GERMANWINGS, the budget airline in the Lufthansa group, provided free flights for mourners visiting the French Alps scene of the March 24 crash, which French and German prosecutors believe was deliberately caused by the plane's co-pilot.

The freeloader claimed to be a cousin of a female teacher who died, reported the Halterner Zeitung, a newspaper in Haltern, Germany, quoting the teacher's father. Haltern's high school lost 16 schoolchildren and two teachers in the disaster.An airline spokesman told DPA, "The incident is known to Lufthansa," but would not discuss details, except to say Lufthansa lawyers were examining if they could sue her.A fraud inquiry had begun in Hoexter, another town in North Rhine Westphalia state, police there told DPA. They said they were acting on a complaint from Lufthansa.The father said the phantom cousin, who was neither a kinswoman nor friend of his daughter, flew twice to the Alps and back, taking three other unidentified persons with her, according to the newspaper.She even received the counselling that was offered free to the rest of the mourners.

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Lego toys to 'come to life'

LEGO has announced a new line of toys that will combine with virtual worlds in video games, enabling players to build models from real bricks and then drop them into a game on a console.

CALLED Lego Dimensions, the new line of toys and video game is a partnership between the Scandinavian toy manufacturer, Warner Bros and several big names in the entertainment world, including DC Comics - the creators of Batman - the Lord of the Rings franchise, and movie franchises Back to the Future and The Wizard of Oz.

A starter pack will be released in September this year that will include the game and a Lego Toy Pad, on which users will place Lego characters and models to drop them into the virtual world.The style of play is called toys-to-life and has already been successfully brought to market by the Skylanders series and Disney, whose Infinity game allows players to change which Marvel superhero they play as by placing a real life figurine on their own trigger pad. Lego's take on this idea will also see players first build items, for example the Batmobile, from Lego bricks before dropping it into the game as a usable vehicle.

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Iraqi militants 'executed 300 civilians'

ISLAMIC State extremists have executed around 300 Sunni Iraqis in retaliation for the government's launch of a major offensive to regain the western province of Anbar from the radical militia, security sources say.

THE victims, members of local Sunni tribes, were shot dead in the Islamic State-held western town of Qaem near the border with Syria for alleged collaboration with government troops trying to recapture Anbar, the sources said, without giving details.

The Iraqi government started the onslaught to drive Islamic State out of Anbar - the country's largest province - on Wednesday.Last week, Iraqi troops, backed by Shi'ite militiamen and US-led airstrikes, recaptured the strategic northern city of Tikrit in the hardest blow yet to the jihadists, who control vast parts of northern and western Iraq.A security official said that government troops were on Thursday making significant advances in their push to retake mostly Sunni Anbar.Security forces, backed by Sunni and Shi'ite loyalists, have made "big progress" in driving militants out of the area of Sijariya, east of Anbar's capital city of Ramadi, Mohammed Hamed, a senior officer in the province's police, told DPA."Security forces are about to fully liberate Sijariya from the grip of Daesh," he said, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.Six soldiers were killed and 15 wounded in battles with the jihadists in Sijariya, military sources said.Government forces and volunteers were meanwhile imposing a complete siege on Fallujah, a main Anbar city that has been under Islamic State's control for months, Shi'ite militia commander, Juma al-Jamili, said."The next few hours will witness the storming of Fallujah, which is being besieged from all directions," al-Jamili told independent Iraqi news site Almada Press.Most of Anbar, which stretches from Baghdad to the Syrian border, has been under the control of radical Sunni Islamic State and anti-government Sunni insurgents since last year.

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Average US rate on 30-year mortgage falls

AVERAGE long-term US mortgage rates declined this week, approaching historically low levels with the spring home-buying season underway.

MORTGAGE giant Freddie Mac says the national average for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage slipped to 3.66 per cent from 3.70 per cent last week.

The average rate for a 15-year mortgage, popular with homeowners who refinance, fell to 2.93 per cent from 2.98 per cent last week.A year ago, the average 30-year mortgage rate was 4.34 per cent and the 15-year rate was 3.38 per cent.Mortgage rates have remained low even though the Federal Reserve in October ended its monthly bond purchases, designed to hold down long-term rates.The Fed signalled recently that it's still not ready to start raising short-term rates, after keeping them near zero for over six years.

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