England

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Conservative Party chose former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss — a fiscal moderate and a low-tax crusader — as the two finalists in an election to replace departing Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The result came on the day the divisive, unrepentant Johnson ended his final appearance in Parliament as prime minister with the words “Hasta la vista, baby.”

Sunak and Truss came first and second respectively in a secret vote by Conservative lawmakers. Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt came in third and was eliminated.

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s record-breaking heatwave has spurred calls for the government to speed up efforts to adapt to a changing climate, especially after wildfires created the busiest day for London firefighters since bombs rained down on the city during World War II.

LONDON/DUBAI, July 19 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin had talks with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran on Tuesday, the Kremlin leader's first trip outside the former Soviet Union since Moscow's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.

In Tehran, Putin also held his first face-to-face meeting since the invasion with a NATO leader, Turkey's Tayyip Erdogan, to discuss a deal that would resume Ukraine's Black Sea grain exports as well as the conflict in northern Syria.

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.

LONDON, July 19 (Xinhua) -- The fourth round of the Tory leadership ballot concluded here on Tuesday with former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak still in the lead.

Former Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch was knocked out of the race, reducing the number of candidates to three, according to the 1922 Committee of Conservative Party backbenchers.

LONDON (AP) — British has bought another 100,000 doses of vaccine to stop monkeypox as the number of cases across the country has risen to more than 2,130, the majority of them in London, officials said Tuesday.

Britain’s Health Security Agency said while the epidemic is expanding, the majority of cases “continue to be in gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, with the infection being passed on mainly through close contact between people in interconnected sexual networks.”

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.