Church of England sheds light on 'shameful' slave trade ties

LONDON (AP) — Three centuries ago, an enslaved person in Virginia wrote to a leader of the Church of England, begging to be released from “this cruel bondage.” There was no reply from the church, which at the time was accumulating a tidy profit from the trans-Atlantic slave trade. ...

UK police chiefs apologize to Hillsborough disaster families

LONDON (AP) — Britain's police chiefs promised a “cultural change” on Tuesday as they apologized to families of the victims in the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy, the U.K.'s worst sports disaster which saw 97 people killed during a crush of soccer fans at an overcrowded stadium. ...

France braces for major transport woes from pension strikes

PARIS (AP) — France's national rail operator is recommending that passengers stay home Tuesday to avoid strikes over pension reforms that are expected to cause major transport woes but largely spare high-speed links to Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands. Labor unions that...

Eva Green tells UK court 'B movie' could have wrecked career

LONDON (AP) — Eva Green said in a British court Monday that she grew disillusioned with a film project because it was becoming a “B movie” that could ruin her career. The French actress is suing producers for a $1 million fee she says she is owed for “A Patriot,” a sci-fi...

UK's Sunak defends handling of ethics breaches in government

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak defended his record on integrity and decisiveness Monday, amid criticism of the way he has handled ethics scandals involving senior Conservatives. Sunak said he acted “pretty decisively” to fire party Chairman Nadhim Zahawi on...

Boris Johnson says Putin said he could hit him with missile

LONDON (AP) — Former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that President Vladimir Putin didn’t seem serious about avoiding war in the days before Russia invaded Ukraine — and at one point told the British leader it would be easy to kill him with a missile. The Kremlin denied...

Friends mourn volunteer killed helping civilians in Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Friends and volunteers gathered Sunday at Kyiv's St Sophia’s Cathedral to say goodbye to Andrew Bagshaw, a New Zealand scientist who was killed in Ukraine with another volunteer while they were trying to evacuate people from a front-line town. Bagshaw, 48, a...

Eileen Gu takes a bad crash in practice, misses Winter X

ASPEN, Colo. (AP) — Olympic freestyle skiing champion Eileen Gu crashed during practice for the Winter X Games and said she suffered a bad ligament strain in her knee that forced her to miss the contest. Gu, who took two gold medals and one silver at the Beijing Games last year,...

UK leader fires party chairman over tax bill allegations

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak fired the chairman of the governing Conservative Party on Sunday for a “serious breach” of ethics rules in failing to come clean about a tax dispute. Sunak had faced days of pressure to sack Nadhim Zahawi amid allegations he...

UK prime minister fires his party chairman, accused of settling settled an unpaid tax bill while he was Treasury chief