England

LONDON, May 1 (Reuters) - The British Foreign Office said on Sunday Russia is using a troll factory to spread disinformation about the war in Ukraine on social media and target politicians across a number of countries including Britain and South Africa.

Britain cited UK-funded expert research, which it did not publish. It said the research exposed how the Kremlin's disinformation campaign was designed to manipulate international public opinion of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, boost support for it and recruit new sympathisers.

LONDON, April 29 (Reuters) - Russia's most senior lawmaker said on Friday that Ukraine was effectively mortgaging itself to the United States by seeking to tap billions of dollars of weapons loans proposed by U.S. President Joe Biden.

Biden on Thursday asked Congress for $33 billion to support Ukraine - a dramatic escalation of U.S. funding for the war with Russia - and the Ukrainian president pleaded with lawmakers to give the request a swift approval. 

LONDON (AP) — Tennis great Boris Becker was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison on Friday for illicitly transferring large amounts of money and hiding assets after he was declared bankrupt.

The three-time Wimbledon champion was convicted earlier this month on four charges under the Insolvency Act and had faced a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.

Judge Deborah Taylor announced the sentence after hearing arguments from both the prosecutor and Becker’s attorney. She told the former top-ranked player that he’s shown no remorse.

LONDON, April 28 (Reuters) - Russia on Thursday warned the West that there would be a tough military response to any further attack on Russian territory, accusing the United States and its key allies of undermining European security by openly inciting Ukraine to assault Russia.

Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine has killed thousands of people, displaced millions more and raised fears of the most serious confrontation between Russia and the United States since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

LONDON (AP) — A British court ruled Wednesday that the Conservative government acted illegally when it discharged hospital patients into nursing homes without testing them for COVID-19 or isolating them — a policy that led to thousands of deaths early in the pandemic.

Two High Court judges said the policy in March and April 2020 was unlawful because it failed to take into account the infection risk that non-symptomatic carriers of the virus posed to older or vulnerable people.

LONDON, April 26 (Reuters) - One of President Vladimir Putin's closest allies said on Tuesday that Ukraine was spiralling towards a collapse into several states because of what he cast as a U.S. attempt to use Kyiv to undermine Russia.

The comments from Nikolai Patrushev, the powerful secretary of Russia's Security Council, appeared to be an attempt to blame the United States for any division of Ukraine that emerges from the conflict.

LONDON, April 26 (Reuters) - Global food and fuel price shocks linked to the Russia-Ukraine war are set to last until at least the end of 2024 and raise the risk of of stagflation, the World Bank said in its latest Commodities Market Outlook report.

In its first comprehensive analysis of the war's impact on commodity markets, the bank, which provides loans and grants to low- and middle-income countries, said the world faces the biggest commodity price shock since the 1970s.

LONDON, April 26 (Reuters) - Prince Charles and his wife Camilla will visit Canada next month as part of celebrations to mark his mother Queen Elizabeth's 70th year on the British throne, his office said on Tuesday.

The trip, the 19th the heir-to-the-throne has undertaken to Canada, will see the royal couple travel more than 2000 miles from Newfoundland and Labrador to the Northwest Territories over three days from May 17-19.

LONDON (AP) — Four people were found stabbed to death Monday at a home in south London, British police said. A man has been arrested.

The Metropolitan Police force said officers were called by neighbors to reports of a disturbance at around 1:40 a.m. and forced their way into a home in the Bermondsey area. Inside they found three women — in their 30s, 40s and 60s — and a man in his 60s “suffering what are believed to be stab injuries.”

All four were pronounced dead at the scene.

LONDON, April 23 (Reuters) - Russia's top state investigative body said on Saturday it was looking into a Russian media report alleging that sabotage experts from Britain's SAS special forces have been deployed to western Ukraine.

The Special Air Service is an elite military force trained to conduct special operations, surveillance and counter-terrorism. Russia's RIA Novosti news agency on Saturday quoted a Russian security source as saying about 20 SAS members had been sent to the Lviv region.