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    Oil Tanker and Container Ship Collide in the North Sea

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    Britain’s coast guard said it was “coordinating the emergency response to reports of a collision between a tanker and cargo vessel,” and that a fire had broken out.A container ship collided with a U.S.-flagged oil tanker off the northeastern coast of England, according to emergency responders, who scrambled to the scene on Monday morning. Initial images shared by the BBC showed fire and thick black smoke rising from the ships, and local authorities said that a number of people had been taken to area hospitals.The British coast guard said it was “coordinating the emergency response to reports of a collision between a tanker and cargo vessel off the coast of East Yorkshire,” and that an alarm was first raised at 9:48 a.m. local time. More

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      Shocked by Trump Meeting, Zelensky and Ukraine Try to Forge a Path Forward

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      For months leading into the American elections last fall, the prospect of a second Trump presidency deepened uncertainty among Ukrainians over how enduring American support would prove in a war threatening their national survival.After President Volodymyr Zelensky’s disastrous meeting with President Trump in the White House on Friday, many Ukrainians were moving toward a conclusion that seemed perfectly clear: Mr. Trump has chosen a side, and it is not Ukraine’s.In one jaw-dropping meeting, the once unthinkable fear that Ukraine would be forced to engage in a long war against a stronger opponent without U.S. support appeared to move exponentially closer to reality.“For Ukraine, it is clarifying, though not in a great way,” Phillips O’Brien, an international relations professor at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, said in an interview. “Ukraine can now only count on European states for the support it needs to fight.”An immediate result was that Ukrainians, including opposition politicians, were generally supportive of Mr. Zelensky on Saturday for not bending to Mr. Trump despite tremendous pressure.Maryna Schomak, a civilian whose son’s cancer diagnosis has been complicated by the destruction of Ukraine’s largest children’s cancer hospital by a Russian missile strike, said that Mr. Zelensky had conducted himself with dignity.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mother on Hunger Strike to Free Alaa Abd El Fattah From Egyptian Jail at ‘Risk to Life’

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      Laila Soueif, the mother of Alaa Abd El Fattah, one of Egypt’s most prominent political prisoners, has fasted for 151 days as she seeks his release.The mother of a jailed British Egyptian activist has been hospitalized and is at risk of sudden death, a doctor has said, as her hunger strike to demand her son’s release reached 151 days.Laila Soueif, the mother of Alaa Abd El Fattah, one of Egypt’s best-known political prisoners, has survived since late September on water, rehydration salts and sugarless tea and coffee to push for his release from a Cairo prison, her family said.Ms. Soueif, 68, a mathematician and professor who is also a British citizen, started her hunger strike after it became clear that Mr. Abd El Fattah, 43, who had served a five-year sentence, was not going to be released as expected in September.She told The New York Times last fall that she would not back down in her campaign to pressure the British government to use its diplomatic and economic ties with Egypt to secure his release. “When people ask, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ I say, ‘I’m creating a crisis,’ ” she said in an interview.Ms. Soueif lives in Cairo, but has been spending time in Britain throughout her hunger strike and on Monday was admitted to a hospital in London after her blood sugar and blood pressure dropped to dangerously low levels.An undated photo of Alaa Abd El Fattah. In 2021 he was sentenced to five years after sharing a Facebook post about abuse in prison.Omar Robert Hamilton, via ReutersWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      UK’s Starmer to Meet Trump With a Boost on Defense and Pleas for Ukraine

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      Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain, fresh from announcing a boost to military spending, is flying to Washington for a high-stakes visit.Now it’s Keir Starmer’s turn.After President Emmanuel Macron of France navigated his meeting with President Trump on Monday, skirting the rockiest shoals but making little headway, Mr. Starmer, the British prime minister, will meet Mr. Trump on Thursday to plead for the United States not to abandon Ukraine.Mr. Starmer will face the same balancing act as Mr. Macron did, without the benefit of years of interactions dating to 2017, when Mr. Trump greeted the newly elected French president with a white-knuckle handshake that was the first of several memorable grip-and-grin moments.Unlike Mr. Macron, Mr. Starmer will arrive in the Oval Office armed with a pledge to increase his country’s military spending to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2027, and to 3 percent within a decade. That addresses one of Mr. Trump’s core grievances: his contention that Europeans are free riders, sheltering under an American security umbrella.To finance the rearming, Mr. Starmer will pare back Britain’s overseas development aid, a move that echoes, on a more modest scale, Mr. Trump’s dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development. Mr. Starmer’s motive is budgetary not ideological — he says the cuts are regrettable — but Mr. Trump might approve.British officials said Mr. Starmer would combine his confidence-building gestures on defense with a strong show of support for President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and a warning not to rush into a peace deal with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that fails to establish security guarantees for Ukraine.“The key thing is, we don’t want to repeat the previous mistakes in dealing with Putin, in going for a truce or cease-fire that doesn’t convert into a durable peace,” said Peter Mandelson, who became Britain’s ambassador to Washington three weeks ago and has helped arrange the visit.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Starmer Offers to Send U.K. Troops to Ukraine as Part of Peace Deal

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      Prime Minister Keir Starmer said for the first time on Sunday that he was “ready and willing” to deploy troops to help guarantee Ukraine’s security.Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Sunday offered British troops to help guarantee Ukraine’s security as part of any peace deal, as he and other European leaders rushed to coordinate a response to President Trump’s opening of talks with Russia about ending the war in Ukraine.In an article published in The Daily Telegraph on Sunday, Mr. Starmer wrote that he was “ready and willing to contribute to security guarantees to Ukraine by putting our own troops on the ground if necessary.”It was the first time Mr. Starmer had explicitly said that he was considering sending British troops to Ukraine. It came on the eve of an emergency meeting of European leaders in Paris on Monday, to formulate a response to Mr. Trump’s push for a settlement — one that appeared to leave Europe and Ukraine with no clear role in the process.In the article, Mr. Starmer wrote that he was not committing British troops lightly. But “securing a lasting peace in Ukraine that safeguards its sovereignty for the long term is essential if we are to deter Putin from further aggression in the future,” he wrote, referring to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.“The end of this war, when it comes, cannot merely become a temporary pause before Putin attacks again,” Mr. Starmer added.American and Russian officials are expected to meet in Saudi Arabia this week for the start of talks aimed at ending the war. The discussions are said to be preliminary. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday that if an opportunity presented itself for a “broader conversation,” it would include Ukraine and Europe.But the talks underscore that Mr. Trump has an accelerated timetable for reaching a deal to end the war and that he appears determined to conduct negotiations with Russia bilaterally, at least for now. Ukraine confirmed on Sunday that it would not take part in the discussions in Saudi Arabia.The meeting in Paris on Monday will include Mr. Starmer and the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark, as well as top officials of the European Union and NATO. The leaders say they will discuss the war and European security.Mr. Starmer wrote in his article that he would urge the other leaders to increase military spending and take on a greater role in NATO. He added that Ukraine’s path to joining NATO was “irreversible.”Mr. Starmer, who is expected to meet with President Trump in the coming weeks, wrote that Europe and the United States must continue to work closely to secure a lasting peace deal. “A U.S. security guarantee is essential for a lasting peace, because only the U.S. can deter Putin from attacking again,” he wrote. More

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      Trump Picks Warren Stephens, Billionaire Investment Banker, for U.K. Ambassador

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      Warren Stephens, an investment banker and billionaire who donated to President-elect Donald J. Trump’s rivals before eventually supporting him in the 2024 race, was tapped as Mr. Trump’s ambassador to Britain on Monday.The selection of Mr. Stephens for the ambassadorship, a plum posting that often goes to one of the largest donors to presidential campaigns, was in part a nod to the American Opportunity Alliance, a big-money network of Republican donors in which Mr. Stephens plays a leadership role. Mr. Trump and the alliance had a tense relationship at times over the course of his campaign.In 2016, Mr. Stephens, the chief executive of Stephens, Inc., an investment bank based in Little Rock, Ark., gave $2 million to a group dedicated to stop Mr. Trump from winning the Republican presidential nomination. During the most recent election cycle, he backed other Republican presidential candidates, including Asa Hutchinson, Chris Christie, Mike Pence and Nikki Haley.Beginning in April, after it became evident that Mr. Trump would be the Republican nominee, Mr. Stephens donated over $3 million to support his campaign, according to federal campaign finance reports. He also donated $3.5 million to Mr. Trump’s super PACs in 2019 and 2020 during his re-election campaign.During his first term, Mr. Trump named another financial backer of his campaign, Woody Johnson, as ambassador to Britain.In a statement posted on social media, Mr. Trump praised his new pick for “selflessly giving back to his community as a philanthropist.”“Warren has always dreamed of serving the United States full time,” the president-elect said. “I am thrilled that he will now have that opportunity as the top Diplomat, representing the U.S.A. to one of America’s most cherished and beloved Allies.”Theodore Schleifer More

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      UK Lawmakers Vote to Legalize Assisted Dying After Emotional Debate

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      In a landmark decision on Friday, Parliament voted in favor of allowing assisted suicide for the terminally ill in England and Wales.British lawmakers on Friday voted to allow assisted dying for terminally ill patients in England and Wales under strict conditions, opening the way to one of the most significant changes in the country in decades.After five hours of debate in the House of Commons, they voted by 330 to 275 to support a plan that would allow people with a terminal illness, who are expected to live no more than six months, to be helped to die.The vote was not the final word on the legislation, because it will now be scrutinized in parliamentary committees and amendments to the bill may be put forward.But it is a landmark political moment, setting the stage for a significant social change that some have likened to Britain’s legalization of abortion in 1967 and the abolition of the death penalty in 1969.Assisted dying is legal in a handful of European countries, Canada, New Zealand, and in 10 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The decision follows weeks of fraught, often emotional public debate in Britain over an issue of ethics that has transcended party political affiliations.This is a developing story. More

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      UK Transport Secretary Louise Haigh Resigns After Fraud Conviction Revealed

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      In the latest setback for Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Louise Haigh resigned from the cabinet Friday after admitting she pleaded guilty to a type of fraud in 2014.Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain suffered the first resignation from his cabinet on Friday when the transport secretary, Louise Haigh, quit hours after it emerged that she had been convicted of a fraud offense involving a phone a decade ago.The departure is a blow to Mr. Starmer, who has been buffeted by a series of setbacks since Labour won the election in July, but the speed with which Ms. Haigh resigned suggests Downing Street is hoping to minimize the political fallout.As transport secretary, Ms. Haigh had overseen one of Labour’s flagship policies of bringing Britain’s troubled private rail network back into public ownership, through legislation which recently completed its passage through Parliament.Her resignation was triggered by reports from Sky News and The Times of London on Thursday night that revealed she had pleaded guilty to an offense in 2013. At the time she was 24 and working for Aviva, an insurance firm, when she was mugged in London.In her letter of resignation Ms. Haigh said “the experience was terrifying,” and said, “in the immediate aftermath, I reported the incident to the police. I gave the police a list of my possessions that I believed had been stolen, including my work phone.”She added: “Some time later, I discovered that the handset in question was still in my house. I should have immediately informed my employer and not doing so straight away was a mistake.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mystery Drones Spotted Over U.S. Air Bases in Britain

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      Small unmanned craft were seen flying over four bases in England, the U.S. Air Force in Europe said in a statement. The Pentagon noted that there had not been “any significant mission impact.”A number of unidentified drones have been sighted flying over four bases used by the United States Air Force in Britain.The Air Force said in a statement that “small unmanned aerial systems continue to be spotted in the vicinity of and over” four air bases in England. It named the bases as R.A.F. Lakenheath and R.A.F. Mildenhall, both of which are in Suffolk; R.A.F. Feltwell in Norfolk; and R.A.F. Fairford in Gloucestershire.“To date, installation leaders have determined that none of the incursions impacted base residents, facilities or assets,” the statement added. “The Air Force is taking all appropriate measures to safeguard the aforementioned installations and their residents.”Asked about the drones in a news briefing on Tuesday, Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said that they were being “actively monitored.”He added: “The bottom line is it’s something that we’re going to take seriously. We’re continuing to look into it, but as of right now it has not had any significant mission impact.”The British Ministry of Defense said in a statement: “We take threats seriously and maintain robust measures at defense sites. We are supporting the U.S. Air Force response.”This is a developing story. More