Author: JILL LAWLESS Associated Press

LONDON — Half a century of rule by the Assad family in Syria crumbled with astonishing speed after insurgents burst out of a rebel-held enclave and converged on the capital, Damascus, taking city after city in a matter of days. Opposition forces swept across the country and entered Damascus with little or no resistance as […]

LONDON — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is trying to change the narrative on his five-month-old government after plummeting approval ratings, business anxiety over tax hikes and protesting farmers clogging London streets. Conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch calls it an “emergency reset” by a floundering administration. But Starmer’s office says the “Plan for Change” speech […]

LONDON — Greece’s prime minister is in London on Tuesday for his first top-level U.K. meeting since a spat last year over the contested Parthenon Marbles. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed Kyriakos Mitsotakis to 10 Downing St. for talks focused on migration, the war in Ukraine and efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza. […]

LONDON — Ireland faces weeks of coalition talks before it gets a new government, as the country’s two major center-right parties work to form a stable administration. With all but a handful of seats filled in the 174-seat legislature on Monday after three days of counting election ballots, Fianna Fail had won 46 seats and […]

PARIS — The head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service said Friday that Russia is conducting a “staggeringly reckless” sabotage campaign against Ukraine’s Western allies, and that his spies are working to stop the consequences from spiraling out of control. MI6 chief Richard Moore said his agency and its French counterpart were working together to prevent […]

DUBLIN — From his poster, there’s not much to distinguish Gerry Hutch from the slew of other independent candidates hoping discontented voters will propel them into Ireland’s parliament in an election on Friday. “We need change, and I’m your man,” it says. On the streets of Dublin, some voters agree — despite the candidate’s unusual […]

LONDON — British politician John Prescott, a former merchant seaman who rose to the post of deputy prime minister, has died at age 86. Prescott’s family announced his death on Thursday. They said the politician, who had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, died peacefully in a care home on Wednesday with his loved ones around […]

LONDON — Australian writer Richard Flanagan completed an unprecedented literary double on Tuesday, winning Britain’s leading nonfiction book prize a decade after being awarded the Booker Prize for fiction. Flanagan was awarded the 50,000 pound ($63,000) Baillie Gifford Prize for his genre-bending memoir “Question 7,” which combines autobiography, family history and the story of the […]