England

LONDON, July 14 (Reuters) - Workers at Britain's No.2 airport Gatwick will strike for eight days at the end of July and in early August, potentially causing cancellations and travel misery for thousands of passengers at the busiest time of year for summer holidays.

European travellers are already on high alert over worries about air traffic control problems arising from both the reduced air space available due to the Ukraine war, plus staffing issues and industrial action at some locations.

LONDON (AP) — Google said Thursday that it’s rolling out its AI-powered chatbot Bard across Europe and in Brazil, expanding its availability to hundreds of millions more users.

The company also said it’s adding more features to Bard as it scrambles to keep up with rival Microsoft — which uses OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT service in its Bing search engine — in the race to capitalize on generative artificial intelligence technology that has captured worldwide attention.

LONDON, July 12 (Reuters) - Chinese state-linked hackers have secretly accessed email accounts at around 25 organisations including government agencies in a sweeping cyberespionage campaign, Microsoft said on Wednesday.

In an interview with ABC television, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the United States had detected a breach of federal government accounts "fairly rapidly" and had managed to prevent further breaches.

LONDON, July 12 (Reuters) - It started as a local dispute over China's plans to build a new embassy next to the Tower of London - pitting the world's second biggest superpower against an inner-city borough that blocked the project.

Just over seven months later, it is escalating into a diplomatic standoff that, officials from both countries told Reuters, is undermining efforts to repair their badly damaged relations.

LONDON (AP) — Concerns are growing that Russia will not extend a United Nations-brokered deal that allows grain to flow from Ukraine to parts of the world struggling with hunger, with ships no longer heading to the war-torn country’s Black Sea ports and food exports dwindling.

Turkey and the U.N. negotiated the breakthrough accord last summer to ease a global food crisis, along with a separate agreement with Russia to facilitate shipments of its food and fertilizer. Moscow insists it’s still facing hurdles, though data shows it has been exporting record amounts of wheat.

LONDON (AP) — The European Union signed off Monday on a new agreement over the privacy of people’s personal information that gets pinged across the Atlantic, aiming to ease European concerns about electronic spying by American intelligence agencies.

The EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework has an adequate level of protection for personal data, the EU’s executive commission said. That means it’s comparable to the 27-nation’s own stringent data protection standards, so companies can use it to move information from Europe to the United States without adding extra security.

WINDSOR, England (AP) — President Joe Biden and King Charles III, two leaders who waited decades to reach the pinnacle of their careers, used their first meeting in those roles Monday to zero in on the generational challenge of climate change, prodding private companies to do more to bolster clean energy in developing countries.

LONDON, July 9 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden was due to arrive in Britain on Sunday evening for a brief visit during which he will meet Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and discuss climate change with King Charles ahead of the upcoming NATO summit in Lithuania.

The White House said the trip was designed "to further strengthen the close relationship between our nations".

LONDON, July 9 (Reuters) - Britain's BBC suspended a male member of staff on Sunday following an allegation that one of its star presenters paid a teenager thousands of pounds to pose for sexually explicit photos, beginning when they were 17 years old.

The broadcaster said it first became aware of a complaint in May, but new allegations of a different nature were made to it on Thursday, and it had informed "external authorities".

London's Metropolitan Police said it had received initial contact from the BBC but no formal referral or allegation had been made.

LONDON (AP) — A dash of pomp and a dose of politics are on the agenda during a stopover visit to the U.K. where President Joe Biden will discuss the environment with King Charles III and the war in Ukraine with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Biden flies to London on Sunday on his way to a NATO summit in Lithuania. He is scheduled to hold talks with Sunak at 10 Downing St. on Monday before heading to Windsor Castle to meet Charles for the first time since the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in September.