England

LONDON, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Britain announced an immediate surge of military deliveries to Ukraine to help it fend off an intensifying Russian offensive and pledged to train its pilots as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on a rare visit abroad.

London was Zelenskiy's first stop on only his second trip abroad since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 after a visit to the United States in December. He is due to travel onto Brussels on Thursday where the European Union is holding a summit.

LONDON (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will visit Britain on Wednesday, his first trip to the U.K. since Russia’s invasion began nearly a year ago and only his second confirmed journey outside Ukraine during the war.

The British government says Zelenskyy will hold talks with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, address Parliament and meet with U.K. military chiefs.

The U.K. is one of the biggest military backers of Ukraine and has sent the country more than 2 billion pounds ($2.5 billion) in weapons and equipment.

LONDON, Feb 7 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reshuffled his cabinet on Tuesday, breaking up two departments to better suit his pledges to spur the economy and turn around his party's fortunes before an election expected next year.

Sunak created a new energy security and net zero department, to be led by minister Grant Shapps, and three other departments, with one focusing on science and innovation, a personal passion for Sunak.

LONDON (AP) — British energy firm BP reported record annual earnings on Tuesday, fueling demands that the U.K. government boost taxes for companies benefiting from the high price of oil and natural gas after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

London-based BP said underlying replacement cost profit, which excludes one-time items and fluctuations in the value of inventories, jumped to $27.7 billion in 2022 from $12.8 billion a year earlier. That beat the $26.8 billion BP earned in 2008, when tensions in Iran and Nigeria pushed world oil prices to a record of more than $147 a barrel.

LONDON (AP) — A confidential U.N. report into alleged missteps by senior World Health Organization staffers in the way they handled a sexual misconduct case during an Ebola outbreak in Congo found their response didn’t violate the agency’s policies because of what some officials described as a “loophole” in how the WHO defines victims of such behavior.

LONDON, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Britain faces its largest ever strike by health workers on Monday as tens of thousands of nurses and ambulance workers walk out in an escalating pay dispute with the government, spelling further disruption for an already strained health system.

Nurses and ambulance workers have been striking separately on and off since late last year but Monday's walkout involving both, largely in England, will represent the biggest in the 75-year history of the National Health Service (NHS).

LONDON (AP) — Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss says her failure wasn’t her fault.

Truss on Sunday blamed a “powerful economic establishment” and internal Conservative Party opposition for the rapid collapse of her government, and said she still believes her tax-cutting policies were the right ones.

Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister resigned in October, six weeks into the job, after her inaugural budget plan sparked market mayhem.

LONDON (AP) — Former pop star Gary Glitter was released from prison in England on Friday after serving half of a 16-year prison sentence for sexually abusing three young girls in the 1970s.

The 79-year-old singer, whose real name is Paul Gadd, was freed from a prison in Dorset, in southwest England. It is common for offenders in the U.K. to be freed halfway through their sentences and then be placed on probation.

LONDON (AP) — A man who was arrested on the grounds of Windsor Castle with a loaded crossbow pleaded guilty to treason on Friday for planning to attack Queen Elizabeth II.

Jaswant Singh Chail, 21, admitted to a charge under the Treason Act of intending to “injure the person of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, or to alarm her Majesty.” He also pleaded guilty to making threats to kill and possessing an offensive weapon.

LONDON, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- Up to half a million British teachers, university staff, train drivers and civil servants went on strike on Wednesday in the largest coordinated action for years amid lengthy disputes over pay.

Teacher members of the National Education Union in England and Wales walked out in the first of several days, affecting 23,400 schools.

There is a crisis of recruitment and retention within the school system, and a decade of falling pay is a key reason for this move and needs to be addressed by the government, the union said.