England

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak welcomed Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu to London on Friday while demonstrators gathered nearby to protest against the Israeli government’s right-wing policies.

Israel faces a national crisis over the government’s plans to overhaul the judicial system. They have ignited Israel’s biggest protests in history and sparked rare dissent from across Israeli society, including military reservists, navy veterans, high-tech businesspeople and former officials.

LONDON, March 23 (Reuters) - New York kept the top spot in the latest rankings of global financial centres from Z/Yen Group on Thursday, with London and Singapore also unchanged in second and third place.

New York overtook London to head the table in September 2018 -- two years after Britain voted to leave the European Union -- but London has retained its second place ranking since then, despite some predicting it could take a heavy knock from Brexit.

LONDON, March 23 (Reuters) - The Bank of England is expected to raise interest rates for the 11th time in a row on Thursday after a surprise jump in inflation dashed speculation that it might have been about to take a pause.

The BoE is trying to reconcile Britain's weak economic outlook and recent worries about global banks with stubbornly high price growth, and is due to announce its latest decision on rates at 1200 GMT.

Most economists had believed inflation was on course to fall steadily, after hitting a 41-year high above 11% in October.

LONDON, March 22 (Xinhua) -- The United Kingdom's (UK) Parliament passed a key part of the government's new post-Brexit trade deal on Northern Ireland on Wednesday despite opposition from the region's major unionist party.

The vote was on the so-called "Stormont Brake," which offers Northern Ireland more power over new European Union (EU) laws. Members of the House of Commons (lower house of Parliament) voted by a margin of 515 to 29. Those voting 'no' included six Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) members.

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faces a rebellion from some fellow Conservatives, including his two immediate predecessors, when lawmakers vote Wednesday on his deal with the European Union to revise the rules governing Northern Ireland trade.

Former prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss said they would vote against the agreement, which is designed to resolve a thorny trade dispute that vexed U.K.-EU relations and triggered a political crisis in Belfast.

LONDON (AP) — U.K. inflation accelerated for the first time in four months in February as high food and energy prices hit consumers battered by the nation’s cost-of-living crisis.

The consumer price index jumped to 10.4% in the 12 months through February from 10.1% the previous month, the Office for National Statistics said Wednesday. The figures surprised analysts who had forecast inflation would slow to 9.9%.

LONDON, March 21 (Reuters) - Data from the early days of the COVID pandemic, briefly uploaded to a database by Chinese scientists, gives information on its origins, including suggesting a role for raccoon dogs in the coronavirus reaching humans, international researchers said.

The virus was first identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, with many suspecting a live animal market to be involved, before spreading round the world and killing nearly 7 million people to date.

LONDON (AP) — The Scottish National Party is finding Nicola Sturgeon a hard act to follow.

Scotland’s governing party is holding an acrimonious contest to replace Sturgeon, a leader who came to dominate Scottish politics, but hit an impasse in her fight for independence from the United Kingdom, and divided the party with a transgender rights law.

LONDON, March 17 (Reuters) - Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has presented awards to the pilots of two Su-27 fighter planes that intercepted a U.S. drone near the airspace around Russia's military campaign in Ukraine, his ministry said on Friday.

The drone crashed into the Black Sea on Tuesday after being intercepted by Russian jets, in the first known direct military encounter between Russia and the United States since Russia invaded Ukraine a year ago.

MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Jim Ratcliffe toured Manchester United on Friday as part of his bid to buy the English soccer club.

The billionaire owner of INEOS jetted in for talks with club executives at Old Trafford, along with some of his closest advisors.

Ratcliffe was greeted by United chief executive Richard Arnold on Friday morning and will get a closer look at the club before submitting a formal offer to the Glazer family.