United Kingdom

LONDON (AP) — Britain shattered its record for highest temperature ever registered Tuesday amid a heat wave that has seared swaths of Europe, as the U.K.’s national weather forecaster said such highs are now a fact of life in a country ill-prepared for such extremes.

LONDON, July 18 (Reuters) - Flights to and from Britain's London Luton airport were temporarily disrupted on Monday after soaring temperatures caused a defect in its runway, prompting airlines to delay or divert their planes.

The temperature rose above 37C (98.6 Fahrenheit) in parts of England on Monday, and was forecast to hit new record highs above 38.7C on either Monday or Tuesday. Much of Europe has also been baking in a heatwave. 

The airport said its runway had reopened at 1705 GMT, after earlier suspending flights at 1522 GMT.

LONDON, July 18 (Reuters) - Britain's former finance minister Rishi Sunak held onto his lead in the race to become Britain's next prime minister on Monday as another hopeful was knocked out, leaving four candidates in an increasingly bitter contest to replace Boris Johnson.

Sunak got 115 votes in the third ballot of Conservative lawmakers on Monday, ahead of former defence minister Penny Mordaunt on 82 and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on 71.

LONDON, July 18 (Reuters) - Russia's Gazprom has told customers in Europe it cannot guarantee gas supplies because of 'extraordinary' circumstances, according to a letter seen by Reuters, upping the ante in an economic tit-for-tat with the West over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

The July 14 letter from the Russian state gas monopoly said it was retroactively declaring force majeure on supplies dating from June 14. The news comes as Nord Stream 1, the key pipeline delivering Russian gas to Germany and beyond, is undergoing annual maintenance meant to conclude on Thursday. 

LONDON (AP) — Millions of people in Britain stayed home or sought shade Monday during the country’s first-ever extreme heat warning, as hot, dry weather that has scorched mainland Europe for the past week moved north, disrupting travel, health care and schools.

The red heat alert covers a big chunk of England and is due to last through Tuesday, when temperatures may reach 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time, posing a risk of serious illness and even death among healthy people, according to the Met Office, the U.K.’s meteorological agency.

LONDON, July 17 (Xinhua) -- As Britain issued its first-ever "Red Extreme" heat warning, the highest-level alert, a leading climate scientist has said the country is ill-prepared for the record scorchers.

"The record high temperatures we're expecting and experiencing is not surprising. Climate change is leading to changes in extreme temperatures, changes in the number of heat waves around the world," Corinne Le Quere, professor of Climate Change Science at Britain's University of East Anglia, told Xinhua on Friday.

LONDON, July 17 (Xinhua) -- As political risk, volatility and social divisions increase in the United States, public trust hits a record low, which makes the country start to look less like a developed economy, a recent Financial Times opinion piece said.

LONDON (AP) — The candidates to become the next British prime minister burnished their right-wing credentials Sunday, as they looked to remain in the race to succeed Boris Johnson.

Many of the five remaining hopefuls highlighted issues linked to Brexit and immigration as they attempted to woo fellow Conservative lawmakers ahead of a third round of voting on Monday, when another contender will drop out.

LONDON, July 15 (Reuters) - The five remaining contenders to be Britain's next prime minister will go head to head in the first of three televised debates on Friday, hoping a good performance will boost their chances in a battle that so far has no clear frontrunner.

An initial field of 11 challengers has been whittled down following two days of votes by lawmakers from the ruling Conservative Party, but no individual has yet emerged as the obvious successor to Boris Johnson who announced he was stepping down following a series of scandals.

15 July 2022; MEMO: The trial of two middlemen at the centre of a historic bribery case involving the payment of millions of dollars by the UK to Saudi royals to secure lucrative arms deal has been halted by a UK judge. The jury at Southwark Crown Court were discharged yesterday by Judge Simon Bryan, who imposed reporting restrictions on the reasons for halting proceedings in anticipation that a retrial could take place at a later date.