Europe

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s upstart Brexit Party has failed in its first attempt to win a seat in Britain’s Parliament, narrowly losing to the left-of-center Labour Party in a special election.

Labour candidate Lisa Forbes won the Peterborough constituency in eastern England by 683 votes over the Brexit Party’s Mike Greene.

The result, announced Friday, is a blow to the momentum of the months-old Brexit Party led by former UKIP leader Nigel Farage.

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — The death toll from last week’s Danube River crash between a sightseeing boat and a cruise ship has risen by four to 19, Hungarian police said Thursday.

Police said the body of a female South Korean tourist was found in Budapest, while the remains of one of the two Hungarian crewmen was found at the town of Erd, 21 kilometers (13 miles) downstream from the scene of the crash at Margit Bridge, near the Hungarian Parliament building.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday reaffirmed his staunch denial that his government meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election despite the extensive evidence to the contrary, and insisted Moscow has no intention of interfering in any future votes, either.

Speaking in response to a question from The Associated Press during a meeting with chief executives of international news agencies in St. Petersburg, the Russian leader said that “we didn’t meddle, we aren’t meddling and we will not meddle in any elections.”

CAEN, France (AP) — The D-Day commemoration was an occasion for France to showcase its long friendship with the United States, but U.S. President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron nevertheless acknowledged their differences on key world issues when they met Thursday.

OMAHA BEACH, France (AP) — The Latest on the 75th anniversary of D-Day (all times local):

8:15 p.m.

Concluding D-Day celebrations at Juno beach, with birds singing in the background, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has made a plea for global peace and understanding.

Philippe attended the ceremony alongside Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, among other dignitaries from other countries.

6 June 2019; AFP: Portugal manager Fernando Santos hailed Cristiano Ronaldo a "football genius" after his 53rd career hat-trick sent Portugal into the final of the Nations League on home soil in Porto with a 3-1 win over Switzerland.

The hosts had to withstand a huge moment of VAR controversy as after Ronaldo's free-kick opened the scoring, Portugal thought they had the chance to double their lead from the penalty spot.

6 June 2019; AFP: Scientists on Thursday unveiled the most detailed simulation of a black hole yet, solving a mystery dating back more than four decades over how the star-devouring monsters consume matter.

Coming fresh on the heels of the first ever photo of one of the giant objects, which are scattered across the Universe, astrophysicists are now several steps closer to understanding how they form and develop.

6 June 2019; DW: The sudden end to the merger talks came after midnight in Paris.

In a statement issued from London early on Thursday, Fiat Chrysler (FCA) said it was withdrawing its merger proposal which would have created the world's third-largest automaker, worth almost €36 billion ($40 billion) after it became "clear that the political conditions in France do not currently exist for such a combination to proceed successfully."

6 June 2019; DW: Denmark's Social Democrats won the largest share of the vote in the country's parliamentary election on Wednesday, with the preliminary results showing populists shedding support.   

Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen of the Liberal Party conceded defeat to the center-left party led by Mette Frederiksen, which appeared to have gained support thanks to its adoption of a tougher stance on immigration. 

Main preliminary election results:

6 June 2019; DW: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he believed that Brexit would work out well from an Irish point of view — and raised eyebrows by evoking the idea of a "wall" across the island of Ireland.

Dublin has long insisted there must be no physical barrier at the frontier between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, and the president was immediately picked up on his faux-pas.