LONDON (AP) — Voters in the English city of Manchester are electing a new mayor Thursday to replace Andy Burnham, who quit the job to become Britain’s prime minister.
It’s also chance for some 2 million voters to pass judgment on the governing Labour Party, whose sagging popularity Burnham hopes to revive. Polling stations are open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., with vote-counting starting Friday morning.
Burnham was mayor of Greater Manchester for nine years until he won a special election for a seat in Parliament last month with the intention of challenging then- Prime Minister Keir Starmer for the Labour leadership.
Burnham’s momentum spurred Starmer to announce he would resign after just two years in office. Burnham was the only candidate in Labour’s leadership election, and he became prime minister on July 20.
He has established a branch of the prime minister’s office in the city, dubbed “No. 10 North,” to help fulfil his pledge to give local leaders more powers and spread economic growth around the country.
The Greater Manchester region has a population of about 3 million and includes the city of Manchester and surrounding towns. Burnham won three straight mayoral elections, in 2017, 2021 and 2024, and Labour candidate Bev Craig, the current leader of Manchester City Council, is hoping to retain the mayoralty for the party.
Burnham said serving as mayor had been an “immense privilege,” and he urged voters to back Craig to “build on the progress we’ve all made together.”
Craig faces six other candidates, including Sian Astley from the anti-immigration party Reform UK, which won big in many areas of Greater Manchester in local elections in May.
Labour has also lost voters to the Green Party, which won a special parliamentary election in the Gorton and Denton district of Greater Manchester in February, pushing Labour into third place and heightening concerns in the governing party about Starmer’s leadership. Those worries came to a head after the May election rout, leading to Starmer’s fall and Burnham’s rise.
Rob Ford, professor of politics at the University of Manchester, said “Labour want a show of strength in a city region where the party has long been politically dominant.”
“A big win in his former stomping ground will provide a significant boost for Andy Burnham,” Ford wrote in a blog post for the U.K. in a Changing Europe think tank.
Britain's Prime Minister Andy Burnham arrives to hold a National Economic Council meeting at No 10 North at Heron House in Manchester, England. Friday July 24, 2026. (Christopher Furlong/Pool Photo via AP)
LEGE-CAP FERRET, France (AP) — Higher humidity, cooler temperatures and a forecast for rain raised hopes of relief Thursday for a parched portion of southwestern France engulfed by wildfires that have charred an area four times the size of Paris in recent weeks.
With moisture moving in from the Atlantic coast, national weather service Meteo France forecast light rain in the town of Lege-Cap Ferret, on a peninsula that's been a leading edge of the devastated region.
Local officials reported a “rather calm" night, with a fire that has not grown beyond the 42,000 hectares (about 162 sq. miles) already affected. Fire crews remained at “total mobilization” with 2,200 firefighters and over 20 aircraft.
Rain fell early Thursday in the city of Bordeaux to the east. But there were no early signs of enough rainfall in the hardest-hit areas that could douse the flames or dampen the sandy ground and brushy undergrowth of pine forests that have fueled the inferno.
Sophie Brocas, the prefect for the Gironde region, expressed some optimism that lower temperatures could help.
“If that's confirmed, we could foresee a return to a more normal life for residents, but also for businesses that need to work,” she told reporters late Wednesday.
Humidity reached 80% overnight but was expected to drop by midday, authorities said. Some rainfall was expected along the coast that “could reach the fire zone,” Gironde officials said in a morning note.
Temperatures that peaked around 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) a day earlier were set to drop Thursday, topping out at 27 C (80 F) along the coast. An “orange” heat wave alert — the second-highest level after “red” — was lifted shortly before dawn.
The fires in the Bordeaux wine-growing, forested and tourism-heavy region are among the blazes that have swept across pockets of southern Europe in recent weeks, including Spain and Greece.
On Wednesday, authorities said three firefighters had died on the Greek island on Crete, as the wildfire emergency stretched from the Atlantic coast to the eastern Mediterranean.
At the peak of the evacuations, a third of a million people were driven from homes and vacation sites in France and Spain.
Flames burn an olive tree during a wildfire in the Rethymno region on the southern Greek island of Crete, Wednesday, July 29, 2026, where two firefighters died while battling the blaze. (AP Photo/Giannis Angelakis)
Embers smolder inside an olive tree during a wildfire in the Rethymno region on the southern Greek island of Crete, Wednesday, July 29, 2026, where two firefighters died while battling the blaze. (AP Photo/Giannis Angelakis)
A fire burns in the forest near Blagon, during wildfires in southwestern France, Wednesday, July 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
A firefighter lays on the ground after working to extinguish a fire in the forest near Blagon, during wildfires in southwestern France, Wednesday, July 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
A smoke cloud rises as firefighters work to extinguish a fire in the forest near Blagon, during wildfires in southwestern France, Wednesday, July 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
