A British mother of six who hoped one of her sons would become a jihadist was on Thursday jailed for five years and three months after she used social media to encourage acts of terror in Syria.

Britain's Prince William met U.S. President Barack Obama in the Oval Office on Monday as well-wishers braved the freezing cold to glimpse his pregnant wife, the Duchess of Cambridge, in New York.

The royal pair parted company on day two of their second visit as a couple to the United States as they mix diplomacy with supporting their favorite causes and promoting British business.

The British embassy in Cairo suspended public services on Sunday for security reasons, a spokesman for the mission said.

Embassy spokesman David Kinna declined to give details but said the decision was taken in the best interest of the embassy and its staff.

Alex Salmond, who quit as Scotland's first minister after losing the independence referendum, announced Sunday he will run for a seat in the British parliament in the May general election.

Salmond, who led the campaign for Scotland to leave the United Kingdom, said he wanted to return to politics in London to "make sure that Scotland gets what it's promised" from the post-referendum settlement.

A British paratrooper has been arrested in Austria for allegedly sexually abusing a six-year-old child, authorities said Thursday.

"An investigation has been launched against a British soldier on suspicion of aggravated sexual abuse of a child," Hansjoerg Mayr, public prosecutor in the western city of Innsbruck, told Agence France-Presse.

The European Union welcomed Britain's return to a controversial EU-wide arrest warrant system on Monday following a vote by the British parliament.

Britain's government opted out of all 133 EU police and criminal justice measures last year, but decided to rejoin some of them before that decision came into effect on Monday.

Up to 13,000 people are estimated to be kept in conditions of slavery in Britain, four times higher than was previously thought, officials said Saturday.

The Home Office figure for 2013 includes women forced into prostitution and people forced to work in factories and fields, many of them foreign nationals.

British businessman Ian Griffin goes on trial Monday for the 2009 murder of his girlfriend, who was found dead in the bathtub in the room they shared at a five-star Paris hotel.

Kinga Wolf, 36, a wealthy Polish-born Frenchwoman, had been missing for two days when her battered body was found at the Bristol Hotel in a room with blood spattered on the mattress and walls.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Sunday he was "horrified" after the Islamic State jihadist group claimed to have executed U.S. aid worker Peter Kassig, known as Abdul-Rahman after converting to Islam.

"I'm horrified by the cold blooded murder of Abdul-Rahman Kassig," Cameron wrote on Twitter. "ISIL have again shown their depravity. My thoughts are with his family."

Britain has used its unmanned aerial drones in Iraq for the first time to strike Islamic State jihadists, the Ministry of Defense said Monday.

Over the weekend, a remotely-piloted Reaper aircraft successfully launched a missile attack on IS extremists near Baiji, north of Baghdad, where they were planting improvised explosive devices, the MoD said.