UNITED KINGDOM

Britain's cost of living crisis has seen inflation soar to 40-year highs, with a widening number of strikes over pay offers that fail to keep pace with rising prices.

An estimated 200,000 Tory grassroots have been able to vote since earlier this month for their preferred candidate, before postal and online ballots close on Friday.

Former finance minister Rishi Sunak, one of two candidates vying to be Britain's next premier, criticised the way outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson handled the COVID-19 pandemic.

They took their case to the UN, where a panel of special investigators in 2021 expressed "serious concern" at the UK's failure to offer a public apology or acknowledge their share of responsibility for these colonial-era abuses.

Buckingham Palace's press operation was gradually revamped, with more PR-savvy people brought in.

British households are feeling "a sense of exasperation" about the surging cost of living which has pushed consumer sentiment to its lowest since at least 1974, according to the country's longest-running survey of household finances.

The Bank of England warned earlier this month that UK inflation would climb to just above 13 percent this year, which would be the highest level since 1980.

The two candidates battling to be Britain's next prime minister vied to present themselves as defenders of Scotland's place in the United Kingdom on Tuesday, promising more scrutiny of Scotland's government to undermine a new push for independence.

New Zealand is sending 120 military personnel to Britain to help train Ukrainians in front-line combat, the government said on Monday.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex returned to the U.K. in June for the Platinum Jubilee celebrations.

The Bank of England will deliver another bumper 50 basis points (bps) increase to borrowing costs next month but then slow the pace to a more regular 25 basis point rise in November before pausing, a Reuters poll forecast.

Stood on her hind legs to greet any prospective owner who might approach her glass-doored kennel, Harriet is a black English cocker spaniel abandoned as a deepening cost-of-living crisis pushes growing numbers of Britons to part with their pets.

Britain's main opposition Labour Party will call for the energy price cap to be frozen this autumn, a party source said, to help the public deal with another expected surge in energy bills during the worst cost-of-living crisis in decades.

Britain's economy contracted by less than feared in June, when public holidays had been expected to exert a big drag.

The source of the River Thames has dried up further downstream than ever before, as England looks set to enter a drought that some experts say the country is unprepared for.

A British man accused of being part of an Islamic State (IS) kidnap-and-murder cell known as the "Beatles" appeared in court in London.

Spain's Ferrovial is looking at options for its 25% stake in London's Heathrow, two sources told Reuters, and has held preliminary talks with external advisers on the future of its holding in Britain's biggest airport.

The sweltering conditions come just weeks after the last heatwave pushed the mercury over 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time in Britain.

Portugal's border agency SEF has faced criticism for delays in issuing post-Brexit ID cards to thousands of British nationals in the country, putting the spotlight on a structural problem that has affected various other migrant communities for years.

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey pushed back at suggestions by the front-runner to become Britain's next prime minister Liz Truss and her supporters that the government should have a bigger role in how the central bank operates.

Liz Truss, front-runner to be Britain's next prime minister, will set out her economic plans to finance sector officials on Friday, including scrapping legacy EU laws by the end of 2023.