UK News & Politics

LONDON -London's Metropolitan Police said they made 30 arrests in the city centre and around Wembley Stadium on Friday and in the early hours of Saturday after England faced Scotland in the European Championships. Thousands of Scotland fans travelled south to London despite torrential...

- Britain's water regulator on Friday threatened to act against water companies that do not have measures in place to monitor storm overflows during periods of heavy rainfall. The intervention is the regulator's latest in a string of measures targeting British water companies that...

LONDON - Imran Ahmad Khan, who represents the Wakefield constituency in northern England, is accused of one offence of sexual assault, relating to an incident in 2008, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said in a statement. "The CPS made the decision that Mr Khan should be charged after reviewing a...

LONDON - British foreign minister Dominic Raab said on Friday the United Kingdom and its NATO allies were disappointed by Russia's decision to leave the Open Skies arms control treaty. "Russia has failed to engage constructively on the Treaty and has not returned to full complian...

LONDON - Britain reported 10,476 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday and 11 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, official data showed. The figures showed 42.5 million people had received their first vaccine dose and 30.9 million had received both shots. ...

LONDON - The estimated COVID-19 reproduction "R" number in England was unchanged between 1.2 and 1.4 with the daily growth rate of infections also the same as last week, Britain's health ministry said on Friday. An R value between 1.2 and 1.4 means that, on average, every 10 peopl...

ROME - Italy has introduced a mandatory five-day quarantine for visitors from Britain, Health Minister Roberto Speranza said on Friday, as concerns grow over increasing cases of a highly contagious coronavirus variant. At the same time, Italy is lifting curbs on travellers from th...

LONDON - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday he was very confident that he would be able to lift remaining coronavirus restrictions on his new target date of July 19, based on the most recent data. "I am very confident that we'll be able to go through with step fou...

LONDON - Notting Hill Carnival, billed as Europe's biggest street party, has been cancelled for a second year in a row due to the COVID-19 pandemic, organisers said on Friday. "This has been an incredibly difficult decision to make," they said in a statement. "Everyone involved in...

By Simon Evans MANCHESTER, England - UEFA has a contingency plan to replace Wembley as host stadium of the Euro 2020 final unless Britain agrees to exempt travelling foreign fans from 10-day quarantine rules, the European soccer governing body said on Friday. Tournam...

By Devik Jain - London's FTSE 250 index edged higher on Friday, helped by gains in industrial stocks and Inchcape, while data showed retail sales fell in May as Britons dined out more following a lifting of pandemic restrictions. The domestically focused mid-cap inde...

LONDON - Britain has reported 33,630 new cases of the Delta coronavirus variant in the latest week, taking the total number of confirmed cases to 75,953, Public Health England said on Friday. The Delta variant now comprises 91% of sequenced cases, Public Health England said, addin...

(Fixes spelling in headline) By Andy Bruce and William Schomberg LONDON -British retail sales fell unexpectedly last month as a lifting of lockdown restrictions encouraged spending in restaurants rather than shops, according to official data. Retail sales ...

LONDON - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson suffered an embarrassing defeat when his Conservative Party lost a parliamentary by-election on the outskirts of London, just a few miles from his own seat. Since its creation in 1974, the Conservatives had comfortably held the leafy, ...

LONDON -British retail sales fell unexpectedly last month as a lifting of lockdown restrictions encouraged spending in restaurants rather than shops, according to official data. Retail sales fell 1.4% between April and May, the Office for National Statistics said. A pol...

LONDON - British retail sales fell unexpectedly last month as a lifting of lockdown restrictions encouraged spending in restaurants rather than shops, according to official data. Retail sales fell 1.4% between April and May, the Office for National Statistics said. A poll of economists had pointed t...

LONDON - Kate, Britain's Duchess of Cambridge, launches a new centre for early childhood on Friday with the aim of raising the importance of the first five years of children's lives and seeking to "transform society for generations to come", her office said. The centre, set up as ...

LONDON - The health service in England will open up COVID-19 vaccinations to everyone aged over 18 on Friday, a big step towards the government's target of giving every adult who wants a vaccine a first shot in the next month. Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday pushed back th...

By Amanda Ferguson BELFAST -The leader of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party Edwin Poots is to step down just three weeks after taking power, he said in a statement. "I have asked the party Chairman to commence an electoral process within the party to allow for...

BELFAST - The leader of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party Edwin Poots is to step down just three weeks after taking power, he said in a statement. "I have asked the party Chairman to commence an electoral process within the party to allow for a new leader of the Democr...