Articles written by Danica Kirka


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  • Kate, princess of Wales, says she completed chemotherapy and will return to limited public duties

    DANICA KIRKA|Sep 6, 2024

    LONDON (AP) — Kate, the princess of Wales, has completed chemotherapy and will make a limited number of public appearances in the coming months, bolstering Britain's royal family after it was rocked by the twin cancer diagnoses of the princess and King Charles III. The 42-year-old wife of Prince William on Monday released a video in which she appeared alongside her husband and children as she described how difficult the past nine months have been for her family and expressed "relief" at completing her course of treatment. "Life as you know i...

  • Divers find 5 bodies during search of superyacht wreckage after it sank off Sicily, 1 still missing

    NICOLE WINFIELD and DANICA KIRKA|Aug 21, 2024

    PORTICELLO, Sicily (AP) — Divers searching the wreck of a superyacht that sank off Sicily found the bodies of five passengers Wednesday, leaving one still missing as questions intensified about why the vessel sank so quickly when a nearby sailboat remained largely unscathed. Rescue crews brought four body bags ashore at Porticello. Salvatore Cocina, head of the Sicily civil protection agency, said a fifth body had been located. Divers on-scene said they would try to recover it on Thursday while continuing the search for the sixth. The d...

  • UK prime minister talks of 'standing army' of police to deal with rioting across Britain

    BRIAN MELLEY and DANICA KIRKA|Aug 2, 2024

    LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Monday that a "standing army" of specialist police would be set up to deal with rioting and that the justice system would be ramped up to handle hundreds of arrests after violent disorder rocked cities across the nation over the past week. Starmer convened an urgent meeting after lawlessness he blamed on "far-right thuggery" that was driven in part by misinformation on social media that whipped up anger over a stabbing rampage at a dance class that killed three girls and wounded 10 p...

  • Elections in Europe, Iran show authoritarian march may have slowed, not halted

    JILL LAWLESS and DANICA KIRKA|Jul 5, 2024

    LONDON (AP) — At first glance, elections in France and Britain were a triumph for leftists and reformers over authoritarians and the right. Even Iran — where Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has the final say on all matters of state — elected Masoud Pezeshkian, a lawmaker long associated with the reformist movement. In France, a leftist coalition beat the far right into third place in legislative elections. The U.K.'s center-left Labour Party swept back to power in a landslide after 14 years of Conservative rule. Iranian voters, offer...

  • A global day of protests draws thousands in Washington and other cities in pro-Palestinian marches

    DANICA KIRKA and FATIMA HUSSEIN|Jan 12, 2024

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Thousands of demonstrators converged opposite the White House on Saturday to call for an end to Israeli military action in Gaza, while children joined a pro-Palestinian march through central London as part of a global day of action against the longest and deadliest war between Israel and Palestinians in 75 years. People in the U.S. capital held aloft signs questioning President Joe Biden's viability as a presidential candidate because of his staunch support for Israel in the nearly 100-day war against Hamas. Some of the s...

  • King Charles III crowned with regal pomp, cheers and shrugs

    DANICA KIRKA and JILL LAWLESS|May 7, 2023

    LONDON (AP) — King Charles III was crowned Saturday at Westminster Abbey, in a ceremony steeped in ancient ritual and brimming with bling at a time when the monarchy is striving to remain relevant in a fractured modern Britain. At a coronation with displays of royal power straight out of the Middle Ages, Charles was given an orb, a sword and scepter and had the solid gold, bejeweled St. Edward's Crown placed atop his head as he sat upon a 700-year-old oak chair. In front of world leaders, foreign royals, dignitaries and a smattering of s...

  • Final preparations underway for procession of queen's coffin

    MIKE CORDER and DANICA KIRKA|Sep 14, 2022

    LONDON (AP) — Queen Elizabeth II's coffin will leave Buckingham Palace for the last time Wednesday as it is taken amid somber pageantry on a horse-drawn gun carriage past crowds of mourners to the Houses of Parliament, where the late monarch will lie in state for four days. Crowds began massing early along the flag-lined road outside the palace for the procession from the monarch's official London residence to the historic Westminster Hall at Parliament. King Charles III and other members of the royal family will walk behind the coffin. T...

  • Charles III proclaimed king at tradition-steeped ceremony

    JILL LAWLESS and DANICA KIRKA|Sep 11, 2022

    LONDON (AP) — Two days after his mother's death elevated him to the throne, King Charles III was officially proclaimed Britain's monarch Saturday in a pomp-filled ceremony steeped in ancient tradition and political symbolism — and, for the first time, broadcast live on television and online. Charles, who spent seven decades as heir apparent, automatically became king when his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, died Thursday. But the accession ceremony was a key constitutional and ceremonial step in introducing the new monarch to the country, a relic o...

  • Putin's Victory Day speech passionate but empty

    DANICA KIRKA|May 8, 2022

    Vladimir Putin had no victories in Ukraine to proclaim on Victory Day. Nor did his speech at the Red Square military parade offer any clear pictures of when a victory may come or how it would be achieved. Instead, the Russian president's address Monday seemed to suggest that the war that many expected would be brief and decisive could be a long and brutal grind. Victory Day commemorates another campaign of grisly determination: the Red Army's offensive against Nazi forces that eventually brought the Soviet troops to Berlin, ending the European...

  • UK Shark House owner dismayed at getting protected status

    DANICA KIRKA|Mar 25, 2022

    LONDON (AP) — The 25-foot tall (7.6 meter) sculpture of a shark crashing through the roof of Magnus Hanson-Heine's house in rural Oxford, England, is now a protected landmark — and he's not happy about it. Hanson-Heine loves the installation, erected by his father and a local sculptor in 1986 as an anti-war, anti-nuke protest that still remains relevant now as bombs fall on Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin rattles his nuclear weapons. But he says the Oxford City Council ignored his father's other message this week when it des...

  • EXPLAINER: Why a no-fly zone is unlikely in Ukraine

    DANICA KIRKA|Mar 4, 2022

    LONDON (AP) — Russia's attack on Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has renewed calls for NATO to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, despite the repeated rejection of the idea by western leaders concerned about triggering a wider war in Europe. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday asked the people of Western Europe to demand that their leaders change course because the shelling of a nuclear power plant in Ukraine threatens the security of the entire continent. "Immediate closure of the skies over Ukraine is needed," he said...

  • Russia's nuke plant attack revives Chernobyl disaster fears

    DANICA KIRKA|Mar 4, 2022

    LONDON (AP) — Russia's attack on a nuclear power plant in Ukraine has revived the fears of people across Europe who remember the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which killed at least 30 people and spewed radioactive fallout over much of the Northern Hemisphere. The U.N nuclear energy watchdog said no radiation was released after Russian forces shelled the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in the early hours of Friday. But that did little to ease growing concerns in Western Europe. Even before the attack, Russia's invasion of Ukraine had heightened c...

  • Prince Andrew to settle sex abuse case, donate to charity

    LARRY NEUMEISTER and DANICA KIRKA|Feb 16, 2022

    NEW YORK (AP) — Britain's Prince Andrew, accused in a lawsuit of sexually abusing a 17-year-old girl supplied to him by financier Jeffrey Epstein, has agreed to settle by making a substantial donation to his accuser's charity and declaring he never meant to malign her character, a court filing revealed Tuesday. The deal avoids a trial that would have brought further embarrassment to the monarchy. Besides the undisclosed donation to Virginia Giuffre's charity, it says Andrew acknowledges she has suffered as an abuse victim. It did not specify w...

  • UK plans holiday weekend to honor queen's 70 years on throne

    DANICA KIRKA|Jan 9, 2022

    LONDON (AP) — The United Kingdom will celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's 70 years on the throne with a military parade, neighborhood parties and a competition to create a new dessert for the Platinum Jubilee, Buckingham Palace said Monday. Elizabeth will become on Feb. 6 the first British monarch to reign for seven decades, and festivities marking the anniversary will culminate in a four-day weekend of events June 2-5. It wasn't immediately clear which events the queen, 95, would take part in after doctors recently advised her to get more rest. T...

  • Whistleblower: As Afghanistan fell, UK abandoned supporters

    DANICA KIRKA and JILL LAWLESS|Dec 8, 2021

    LONDON (AP) — Britain's Foreign Office abandoned many of the nation's allies in Afghanistan and left them to the mercy of the Taliban during the fall of the capital, Kabul, because of a dysfunctional and arbitrary evacuation effort, a whistleblower alleged Tuesday. In devastating evidence to a parliamentary committee, Raphael Marshall said thousands of pleas for help via email were unread between Aug. 21 and Aug. 25. The former Foreign Office employee estimated that only 5% of Afghan nationals who applied to flee under one U.K. program r...

  • Maxwell's brother says US prosecutors seeking to 'break' her

    DANICA KIRKA|Nov 26, 2021

    The brother of a British socialite charged with helping Jeffrey Epstein exploit underage girls says her prosecution is "the most over-hyped trial of the century," designed to break a woman targeted by authorities desperate to blame someone for the late financier's crimes. Ghislaine Maxwell continues to have the backing of her family, and a family member will be in court at all times to show support, Ian Maxwell said in an interview ahead of the trial, which is set to begin Monday in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan. This is "the most over-h...

  • Prince Andrew's lawyers question service of legal documents

    DANICA KIRKA|Sep 12, 2021

    LONDON (AP) — A U.S. court will hold a pretrial conference Monday in the civil suit filed by a woman who claims Prince Andrew sexually assaulted her as the two sides argue over whether the prince was properly served with documents in the case. Attorneys for the woman, Virginia Giuffre, say the documents were handed over to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of Andrew's home in Windsor Great Park on Aug. 27. But Blackfords, a law firm that said they represent Andrew "in certain U.K. matters,'' have questioned whether the p...

  • Prince Andrew faces no good choice in Epstein accuser case

    DANICA KIRKA|Aug 11, 2021

    LONDON (AP) — Britain's Prince Andrew is likely to do anything he can to avoid giving evidence in a U.S. lawsuit filed by an American woman who alleges that he sexually assaulted her when she was 17, lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic say. Andrew may contest the U.S. court's jurisdiction, or ignore the civil lawsuit altogether, taking a chance the court might find him in default and order him to pay damages. No matter which way he goes, though, he will face the constant drumbeat of unsavory media coverage. "There's no good option," said A...

  • Woman convicted of swapping pebbles for gems in London heist

    DANICA KIRKA|Jul 30, 2021

    LONDON (AP) — A woman who secretly swapped seven pebbles for 4.2 million pounds ($5.7 million) worth of diamonds has been sent to prison for her role in the audacious heist at a luxury jewelry store in London's tony Mayfair district. Lulu Lakatos, 60, was sentenced Wednesday to 5 1/2 years in prison after a jury at Southwark Crown Court in London found her guilty of conspiracy to steal. Lakatos was part of an international gang that fled to France after stealing the diamonds from Boodles on New Bond Street on March 10, 2016. The gems haven't b...

  • 'He was our eye': Reuters photographer killed in Afghanistan

    DANICA KIRKA and KATHY GANNON|Jul 16, 2021

    LONDON (AP) — A Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer for the Reuters news service was killed Friday as he chronicled fighting between Afghan forces and the Taliban near a strategic border crossing amid the continuing withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops. Danish Siddiqui, 38, had been embedded with Afghan special forces for the past few days and was killed as the commando unit battled for control of the Spin Boldak crossing on the border between southern Afghanistan and Pakistan. Siddiqui was part of a team that won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for f...

  • G-7 pledge to share, but jostle for ground in the sandbox

    JILL LAWLESS and DANICA KIRKA|Jun 11, 2021

    CARBIS BAY, England (AP) — Group of Seven leaders brought pledges to share vaccine doses and make a fairer global economy Friday to a seaside summit in England, where British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the coronavirus pandemic should not be allowed to leave a "lasting scar" on the world. The wealthy nations' leaders were all smiles and unity as Johnson greeted them on the freshly raked sand of Carbis Bay, but they jostled over who was doing most to help the world's poorer nations fight COVID-19. Recovery from the pandemic was set to d...

  • Prince Harry gives advice to grieving children in new book

    DANICA KIRKA|Mar 21, 2021

    LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Prince Harry has written the foreword for a new book aimed at the children of frontline workers who died in the COVID-19 pandemic, sharing the pain he suffered as a boy after the death of his mother, Princess Diana. Harry wrote that losing his mother at age 12 left “a huge hole inside of me,” according to excerpts of the book printed in the Times of London. Diana died in a Paris car accident in August 1997. “Hospital by the Hill,’’ by Chris Connaughton, is the story of a young person whose mother worked at a hospital an...

  • UK's chief mouser celebrates 10 years on the prowl

    JILL LAWLESS and DANICA KIRKA|Feb 14, 2021

    LONDON (AP) — Larry the cat, a four-legged inhabitant of London's 10 Downing St., is marking a decade as Britain's mouse-catcher in chief on Monday. The tabby cat was recruited by then-Prime Minister David Cameron to deal with a pack of rats seen scuttling close to the British leader's official residence, and entered Downing Street on Feb. 15, 2011. The former stray, adopted from London's Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, was given the title Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, an unofficial pest control post. He was the first cat to hold the r...

  • Study finds COVID-19 vaccine may reduce virus transmission

    DANICA KIRKA and LAURAN NEERGAARD|Feb 4, 2021

    AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine shows a hint that it may reduce transmission of the virus and offers strong protection for three months on just a single dose, researchers said Wednesday in an encouraging turn in the campaign to suppress the outbreak. The preliminary findings from Oxford University, a co-developer of the vaccine, could vindicate the British government's controversial strategy of delaying the second shot for up to 12 weeks so that more people can be quickly given a first dose. Up to now, the recommended time between doses has...

  • Prince Harry says ignorance no excuse for unconscious bias

    DANICA KIRKA|Oct 25, 2020

    LONDON (AP) — Britain's Prince Harry says it took him many years and the experience of living with his wife, the former Meghan Markle, to understand how his privileged upbringing shielded him from the reality of unconscious bias. Harry talked about racial inequality and social justice in a video discussion with the Black Lives Matter activist Patrick Hutchinson as part of the GQ Heroes Conference, which is being broadcast this week. "Unconscious bias, from my understanding, having had the upbringing and the education that I have, I had no idea...

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