Ireland prepares for 3-week campaign to decide next prime minister

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Ireland prepares for 3-week campaign to decide next prime minister

2024-11-09 01:47 Last Updated At：01:50

LONDON (AP) — Ireland's President Michael Higgins dissolved Parliament Friday, clearing the way for a Nov. 29 election that will determine who controls government.

Prime Minister Simon Harris, who had until March to call an election, had announced the date Wednesday.

A historic coalition government led by Harris' center-right Fine Gael party and its center-left rival Fianna Fail has been in power since the 2020 race ended in a virtual dead heat.

“We did not agree on every issue but we did always work hard and together for the good of the Irish people,” Harris said. “The time is now right to ask the Irish people to give a new mandate.”

Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, which arose from opposing sides of Ireland’s 1920s civil war, shared a broadly centrist outlook and had alternated holding power to govern Ireland over the decades. The two set aside their differences in 2020 to work together, bringing the Green Party along as a junior partner.

Fianna Fail leader Micheál Martin served as premier for the first half of the term and was replaced by Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar in December 2022.

Harris took over when Varadkar stepped down earlier this year.

The left-wing nationalist Sinn Fein party had won the largest share of votes in the election but was shut out of government because it couldn't assemble enough support to govern. Sinn Fein has been shunned by centrist parties because of its historic links to the nationalist militants of the Irish Republican Army and decades of violence in Northern Ireland.

Sinn Fein said it was fielding more candidates in its effort to lead the government.

“After a century of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, it is time to make that change, to give Sinn Fein the chance to lead and the chance to deliver,” said party President Mary-Lou McDonald. “In Sinn Fein you will get a government that will move heaven and earth to make housing affordable, to bring home ownership back into the reach of working people and to restore hope for a generation.”

Ireland, which has a population of 5.2 million, has faced many of the same challenges of other countries since its last election: the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruptions due to the war in Ukraine and a surge of migrants from overseas.

Martin said the next five years would be challenging for the Irish economy, noting the impact from global conflicts and a potential change in U.S. trade policy change.

“The greatest threat to the Irish economy is external, and we need experience and we need leadership that has already demonstrated its capacity to weather significant events and shocks to lead us through the next challenging five years,” Martin said.

Harris said the coalition had protected people during coronavirus, supported Ukraine in its war and weathered the cost-of-living crisis.

Housing, immigration and childcare are some of the main issues for voters, he said.

He said he was pleased the government had set aside money to weather any future trade shocks.

“We used to be ridiculed for this,” Harris said. "This is exactly why we have the buffer that is there, is a trans-Atlantic shock or indeed any other shock to our economy, my children will never have to experience the austerity that our generation did.”

Ireland in 2010 faced national bankruptcy over the cost of saving its failing banks. It adopted an austerity program as one of the conditions for an international bailout but rebounded strongly after exiting the bailout in 2013.

Swollen rivers flood towns in US South after dayslong deluge of rain

2025-04-07 13:40 Last Updated At：13:51

FRANKFORT, Kentucky (AP) — Days of unrelenting heavy rain and storms that killed at least 18 people worsened flooding as some rivers rose to near-record levels and inundated towns across an already saturated U.S. South and parts of the Midwest.

Cities ordered evacuations and rescue crews in inflatable boats checked on residents in Kentucky and Tennessee, while utilities shut off power and gas in a region stretching from Texas to Ohio.

“As long as I’ve been alive — and I’m 52 — this is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said Wendy Quire, the general manager at the Brown Barrel restaurant in downtown Frankfort, Kentucky, the state capital built around the swollen Kentucky River.

“The rain just won’t stop,” Quire said Sunday. “It’s been nonstop for days and days.”

Officials diverted traffic and turned off utilities to businesses in the city as the river was expected to crest above 49 feet Monday to a record-setting level, said Frankfort Mayor Layne Wilkerson. The city's flood wall system is designed to withstand 51 feet of water.

For many, there was a sense of dread that the worst was still to come.

“This flooding is an act of God,” said Kevin Gordon, a front desk clerk at the Ashbrook Hotel in downtown Frankfort. The hotel was offering discounted stays to affected locals.

The 18 reported deaths since the storms began on Wednesday included 10 in Tennessee. A 9-year-old boy in Kentucky was caught up in floodwaters while walking to catch his school bus. A 5-year-old boy in Arkansas died after a tree fell on his family’s home, police said. A 16-year-old volunteer Missouri firefighter died in a crash while seeking to rescue people caught in the storm.

The National Weather Service warned Sunday that dozens of locations in multiple states were expected to reach a “major flood stage,” with extensive flooding of structures, roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure possible.

In north-central Kentucky, emergency officials ordered a mandatory evacuation for Falmouth and Butler, towns near the bend of the rising Licking River. Thirty years ago, the river reached a record 50 feet (15 meters), resulting in five deaths and 1,000 homes destroyed.

The storms come after the Trump administration cut jobs at NWS forecast offices, leaving half of them with vacancy rates of about 20%, or double the level of a decade ago.

Forecasters attributed the violent weather to warm temperatures, an unstable atmosphere, strong winds and abundant moisture streaming from the Gulf.

The NWS said 5.06 inches (nearly 13 centimeters) of rain fell Saturday in Jonesboro, Arkansas — making it the wettest day ever recorded in April in the city. Memphis, Tennessee, received 14 inches (35 centimeters) of rain from Wednesday to Sunday, the NWS said.

Rives, a northwestern Tennessee town of about 200 people, was almost entirely underwater after the Obion River overflowed.

Domanic Scott went to check on his father in Rives after not hearing from him in a house where water reached the doorstep.

“It’s the first house we’ve ever paid off. The insurance companies around here won’t give flood insurance to anyone who lives in Rives because we’re too close to the river and the levees. So if we lose it, we’re kind of screwed without a house,” Scott said.

In Dyersburg, Tennessee, dozens of people arrived over the weekend at a storm shelter near a public school clutching blankets, pillows and other necessities. Just days earlier the city was hit by a tornado that caused millions of dollars in damage.

Among them was George Manns, 77, who said he was in his apartment when he heard a tornado warning and decided to head to the shelter. Just days earlier the city was hit by a tornado that caused millions of dollars in damage.

“I grabbed all my stuff and came here,” said Mann, who brought a folding chair, two bags of toiletries, laptops, iPads and medications: “I don’t leave them in my apartment in case my apartment is destroyed."

For others, grabbing the essentials also meant taking a closer look at the liquor cabinet.

In Frankfort, with water rising up to his window sills, resident Bill Jones fled his home in a boat, which he loaded with several boxes of bottles of bourbon.

Izaguirre reported from New York. Kruesi reported from Nashville. Associated Press writers Bruce Schreiner in Shelbyville, Kentucky; Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Adrian Sainz in Memphis; Tennessee; Sarah Raza in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Obed Lamy in Rives, Tennessee; and Sophia Tareen in Chicago contributed to this report.