By JILL LAWLESS

SCUNTHORPE, England (AP) — Tucking into tea and cake in the spring sunshine, Nigel Farage glows with anticipation and big ambitions.

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The man who helped drag Britain out of the European Union wants to displace the Conservatives as country’s main party on the right, challenge left-of-center Labour for power and ultimately reach the prime minister’s office.

That seems like a longshot for the hard-right politician whose Reform UK party holds just four of the 650 seats in the House of Commons. But Reform has surged in opinion polls, and sees Thursday’s local elections in England as a pivot point in its quest to transform British politics.

“This is one of the big hurdles that we have to clear en route to the next general election,” Farage told The Associated Press about the upcoming vote at a cafe in the steel town of Scunthorpe. And when that national election comes, “we intend to completely change British history and win it.”

Reform on the rise

Reform got about 14% of the vote in last year’s national election, but polls now suggest its support equals or surpasses that of governing Labour and the opposition Conservatives.

The party blends Farage’s longstanding political themes — strong borders, curbing immigration — with policies reminiscent of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration. Farage says he plans “a DOGE for every county,” inspired by Elon Musk’s controversial spending-slashing agency.

“We have a plan,” Farage said. “You bring the auditors in, find out why all this money is being spent on consultants and agency workers, end work from home — boom, gone, done, over.”

The party appeals to many working-class voters who once backed Labour, and to social conservatives long drawn to the Tories. Some Conservatives are already suggesting an electoral pact between the two parties on the right for the next national election, due by 2029.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and Reform UK mayoral candidate Andrea Jenkyns look towards the media as they have a cream tea break during their election campaign in Scunthorpe, England, Tuesday, April 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Darren Staples)

Farage laughs off the idea, saying that the Conservative Party “will be so small by then it won’t matter.”

The party has momentum, and it showed during Farage’s election walkabout in the Scunthorpe suburb of Ashby with Andrea Jenkyns, Reform’s candidate for mayor of the Greater Lincolnshire region of east-central England. Reform hopes to win the race and also gain hundreds of local council seats and a House of Commons lawmaker on Thursday.

High school students stopped to ask for selfies, while a passing van driver honked and shouted, “Go on, Nigel lad!” Farage has a level of recognition most politicians can only dream of. He also has a phalanx of security guards that is strikingly large for a British politician. In the past, he has been doused with a milkshake and pelted with cement on the campaign trail.

Economic insecurity

Farage found support from local businesspeople, including bakery owner Andrea Blow.

“The last six months has been really hard for small businesses. Everyone’s feeling the pinch,” Blow said, citing the rising cost of ingredients like chocolate and butter, a hike in payroll taxes for employers imposed by the Labour government and hard times in Scunthorpe, a town trying to shake off decades of post-industrial decline.

Scunthorpe’s fate is tied to a hulking British Steel plant that was long the town’s main source of jobs and still employs about 3,000 people. It was under threat of closure by its Chinese owner, Jingye Group, until the Labour government stepped in to pay for supplies of raw materials to keep the steel furnaces running. The plant’s long-term future remains uncertain.

Farage, a lifelong free-marketeer, now advocates nationalizing British Steel on the grounds of protecting jobs and national security. Critics say that’s evidence his views shift with the political winds.

Rival parties are concerned

The rise of Reform worries both Labour and the Conservatives.

Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said a strong result for Farage’s party on Thursday might scare both Labour and the Conservatives into toughening their stance on immigration and other issues to try to “become Reform-light.”

He said that would be a mistake.

“If we look all around Europe, the idea that you are best off tackling these radical right insurgencies by copying some of their policies and some of their rhetoric isn’t borne out by reality,” Bale said. “If you present people with a copy, they tend to prefer the original.”

A divisive politician

Farage is Reform’s biggest asset, but he also is a divisive figure who has said many migrants come to the U.K. from cultures “alien to ours.”

Critics say Farage stoked tensions by inaccurately suggesting police were withholding information about a stabbing rampage at a dance class that left three children dead in July. False claims that the attacker was an asylum-seeker sparked days of rioting across England.

Reform has also been dogged by some of the infighting associated with the previous parties Farage led, UKIP and the Brexit Party, though it has sought to become a slicker and more professional organization.

Farage’s status as Trump’s most prominent U.K. supporter could also have a downside, since polls suggest the US. president is broadly unpopular in Britain.

Farage distances himself from some Trump policies, including trade tariffs and a desire for the U.S. to make Canada its 51st state.

“I’m a friend of his, and our interests are similar, but they’re not symmetrical,” he said.

His argument that the U.K.’s net-zero carbon emission goals are “lunacy” also could limit Reform’s appeal to younger voters.

“They’re a party that thrives on division,” said 37-year-old Joe Richards, who plans to vote Labour in Scunthorpe and claimed Reform offers simplistic solutions to complex problems. “I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them.”

But another resident, retiree Tyna Ashworth, 71, said she is “willing to give Reform a go.”

“A lot of the politicians, they don’t listen. … They couldn’t live on my pension,” she said. “I’ve worked 50 years for this country, and I’ve worked hard. And I think I deserve to be able to live a decent life.”

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran said Wednesday the next round of negotiations over its rapidly advancing nuclear program it will have with the United States will be in Rome on Saturday.

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Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi made the comment on the sidelines of a Cabinet meeting, adding that Iran also anticipated having a meeting Friday with France, Germany and the United Kingdom to discuss the talks.

The talks with the U.S. again will be mediated by Oman. The sultanate has hosted two rounds of talks in Oman’s capital, Muscat, and one round at its embassy in Rome.

The talks seek to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of some of the crushing economic sanctions the U.S. has imposed on the Islamic Republic closing in on a half-century of enmity.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to unleash airstrikes targeting Iran’s program if a deal isn’t reached. Iranian officials increasingly warn that they could pursue a nuclear weapon with their stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels.

The PWHL will expand to eight teams next season by adding Seattle as its second new franchise alongside Vancouver, and the Associated Press has learned that plans are already in the works to add two more in a year’s time.

Seattle’s addition, announced Wednesday, gives the PWHL a strong foothold in the Pacific Northwest and comes a week after the unveiling of the new team in Vancouver for the 2025-26 season. The westward move broadens the league’s reach across the continent in two markets with a history supporting women’s sports and separated by just a three-hour drive.

“Of course the geography makes a ton of sense and I think we have a built-in rivalry here that will just naturally happen,” executive vice president of business operations Amy Scheer told the AP.

“But most importantly is they met all the criteria in terms of what we were looking for,” she added. “There’s just a ton of business reasons to do it. And those are the only things we’re focused on.”

The two-team expansion for Season 3 is only the beginning for a league that launched in January 2024 with five Eastern franchises — Boston, New York, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto — and one in St. Paul.

The PWHL plans to grow to 10 teams for its 2026-27 season, a person with knowledge of discussions told the AP on the condition of anonymity because the talks are private. The person said the league is accelerating its plans based on the strength of responses and feedback received during its eight-month expansion search in which the PWHL considered more than 20 markets.

Scheer didn’t entirely dispute the plan, without providing an exact timetable.

“I think we’ve been pretty clear from the outset that this is the first year of a multi-year process,” Scheer said as the PWHL closes the final week of the regular season. “It could come in Year 4. It could come Year 5. I think that those conversations are still being had.”

Neutral site stops this past season in Denver, Detroit, Quebec City and Edmonton each topped 14,000 fans.

The new team will initially go by PWHL Seattle and its colors will be emerald green and cream. The team will play out of the NHL Kraken’s Climate Pledge Arena and practice at the Kraken Community Iceplex. Vancouver also has not announced a nickname yet.

Though all PWHL teams are centrally controlled by the league, Seattle’s expansion bid was led by the Kraken and the Oak View Group, which developed and operates Climate Pledge Arena.

Oak View has longtime ties to women’s hockey and expressed interest in landing an original six franchise when the league was established in June 2023 by Los Angeles Dodgers owner Mark Walter, his wife Kimbra, and tennis icon Billie Jean King.

Seattle features a growing youth hockey program, is home to the WNBA’s Storm and NWSL’s Reign, and has previously shown support for women’s hockey. In November 2022, Seattle drew a U.S.-Canada Rivalry Series record crowd of 14,551. In January, the PWHL drew a crowd of 12,608 in kicking off its nine-game Takeover Tour of neutral site games in Seattle.

The PWHL plans to announce the date of an expansion draft and how Vancouver and Seattle will be integrated into its entry draft on June 24 at a later time.

“Upon launch, you’ve got six teams and maybe if you’re not North American, you don’t know really what to expect,” PWHL executive vice president of hockey operations Jayna Hefford said. “Now, I think these players are seeing that this league is here, it’s thriving, it’s growing, and they are going to want to be a part of it.”

By TIM SULLIVAN

PANHANDLE, Texas (AP) — The truck driver is cutting his lawn on a windy afternoon, in a town so quiet you can take afternoon walks down the middle of Main Street.

Kevenson Jean is leaving the next day for another long haul and wants things neat at the two-bedroom home he shares with his wife in the Texas Panhandle town fittingly called Panhandle. So after mowing he carefully pulls grass from around the flagpoles in his front yard. One holds the Haitian flag, the other American. Both are fading in the sun.

The young couple, who fled the violence that has engulfed Haiti, thought until a few months ago that they could see the American dream, somewhere in the distance.

Now they are caught up in the confusion and fear that are rippling through the immigrant communities that dot this region. Newcomers have come here for generations to work in immense meatpacking plants that emerged as the state became the nation’s top cattle producer. But after President Donald Trump moved to end legal pathways that immigrants like the Jeans have used, their future — as well as the future of the communities and industries they are a part of — is uncertain.

“We are not criminals. We’re not taking American jobs,” said Jean, whose work moving meat and other products doesn’t attract as many U.S.-born drivers as it once did.

He’s been making more money than he ever imagined. He’s discovered the joys of Bud Light, fishing and the Dallas Cowboys. When she’s not at one of her two food service jobs, his wife, Sherlie, works on her English by reading paperback romances, the covers awash in swooning women.

“We did everything that they required us to do, and now we’re being targeted.”

‘Leave the United States’

The message was blunt.

“It’s time for you to leave the United States,” the Department of Homeland Security said in an early April email to some immigrants who had legal permission to live in the U.S. “Do not attempt to remain in the United States — the federal government will find you.”

Haitian immigrant Nicole, who works for a meat processing plant, shows an email terminating her parole, Sunday, April 13, 2025, in Dumas, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

This is what Trump had long promised

Immigration into the U.S., both legal and illegal, surged during the Biden administration, and Trump spun that into an apocalyptic vision that proved powerful with voters.

The White House rhetoric has focused on illegal immigration and the relatively small number of immigrants they say are gang members or who have committed violent crimes. However, the Trump administration also has sought to end many legal avenues for immigrants to come to the U.S. and revoke the temporary status of hundreds of thousands of people already here, saying people had not been properly vetted.

Jean is among roughly 2 million immigrants living legally in the U.S. on some sort of temporary status. Most have fled deeply troubled countries: Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sudan. Many are allowed to work in the U.S. and have jobs and pay taxes.

Jean is sympathetic in ways to the immigration crackdown.

“The White House, I respect what they say,” he said. “They are working to make America safer.”

“But I will say not all immigrants are gang members. Not all immigrants are like a criminal. Some of them, just like me and my wife, and other people, they are coming here just to have a better life.”

The administration told more than 500,000 Cubans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans and Haitians they would lose their legal status on April 24, though a judge has put that on hold. About 500,000 Haitians are scheduled to lose a different protected status in August.

‘It’s obvious we’re needed’

The government directives and ensuing court battles have left many immigrants unsure of what to do.

“It’s all so confusing,” said Lesvia Mendoza, a 53-year-old special education teacher who came with her husband from Venezuela in 2024, moving in with her son who lives in Amarillo, the Panhandle’s largest city, and who is in the process of getting U.S. citizenship.

She doesn’t understand why the immigration crackdown affects people like her, who came legally and never received government assistance.

“I do know that he says, ‘America for the Americans,’” she said. “But all the jobs, all the production that happens because of immigrants? It’s obvious we’re needed.”

She said she will leave the U.S. if ordered to.

Others aren’t so sure.

“I really can’t go back,” said a Haitian woman who asked to be identified only as Nicole because she fears deportation. “It’s not even a decision.”

She works at a meatpacking plant, deboning cattle carcasses for more than $20 an hour. She received Homeland Security’s message, but insists it can’t refer to someone who has followed the laws as she had, pointing to a phrase exempting people who have “otherwise obtained a lawful basis to remain.”

Haitian immigrant Nicole, who works for a meat processing plant, holds wild flowers she picked near her apartment, Sunday, April 13, 2025, in Dumas, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

A town called Cactus

Deep in the Panhandle, where cattle graze in seemingly endless prairie punctuated with rusting oil pumpjacks, is the town of Cactus.

A wooden mosque with a gold-domed top is set amid streets of battered mobile homes and churches for Roman Catholics, Baptists and Nazarenes. There’s a Somali restaurant, a shop for Central American groceries, and a Thai takeout place.

At Golden Lotus Market, you can pick up Vietnamese instant coffee and a cereal drink from Myanmar. A flyer taped to the store’s entrance and written in English, Spanish and Burmese announces a new youth sports league: “Do you like to play baseball?”

“You meet all walks of life here,” said Ricardo Gutierrez, who was raised in Cactus. “I have Burmese friends, Cubans, Columbians, everyone.”

Sometimes, when the wind is blowing, the acrid smell of the slaughterhouse signals the town’s biggest employer. The meatpacking facility with more than 3,700 workers is owned by JBS, the world’s largest beef producer.

The loss of immigrant labor would be a blow to the industry.

“We’re going to be back in this situation of constant turnover,” said Mark Lauritsen, who runs the meatpacking division for the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents thousands of Panhandle workers. “That’s assuming you have labor to replace the labor we’re losing.”

Nearly half of workers in the meatpacking industry are thought to be foreign-born. Immigrants have long found work in slaughterhouses, back to at least the late 1800s when multitudes of Europeans — Lithuanians, Sicilians, Russian Jews and others — filled Chicago’s Packingtown neighborhood.

The Panhandle plants were originally dominated by Mexicans and Central Americans. They gave way to waves of people fleeing poverty and violence around the world, from Somalia to Cuba.

After U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted a massive operation at Swift & Co. meatpacking plants in 2006 and detained hundreds of workers, the Cactus slaughterhouse, now owned by JBS, increasingly hired refugees and asylum-seekers with legal permission to live and work in the U.S.

Pay starts at roughly $23 an hour. English skills aren’t needed, in part because the thunderous noise of the machines often means communication is done with hand signals.

What is required is a willingness to do physically demanding work.

It was the JBS plant that brought Idaneau Mintor to Cactus, where he works the overnight shift amid relentless blood and gore.

“Every morning they kill the cows, and at night I come in to clean the equipment,” he says flatly.

A lonely life

Mintor lives in nearby Dumas in a small one-story house divided into three one-bedroom apartments. He takes home about $2,400 a month and pays about $350 for a single mattress on the living room floor and a chair where he can pile his clothes. His roommate gets the bedroom.

Sleep, he says, is sometimes impossible, as he worries about the large family he supports in Haiti and whether his work permit will be canceled. On the kitchen counter are stacks of receipts for the money transfers he’s sent back home.

He’s been here for 11 months and can’t fathom being sent back. “I follow the rules,” he said. “I respect everything.”

He has no real friends and doesn’t go out, afraid he could somehow get in trouble.

“I spend my entire day doing nothing, and thinking,” he said, leaning against the home’s stucco walls, by the concrete parking spaces that used to be the front yard. “So I’m happy when it’s time to go to work and I have something to do.”

The last haul?

The sun was barely above the horizon when trucker Kevenson Jean packed a few clothes, zipped up his suitcase and got ready for what he thought would be his final run.

He and his wife came to the U.S. in 2023, sponsored by a Panhandle family whose small nonprofit employed him to run a school and feeding center for children in rural Haiti.

The Jeans were supposed to have at least two years to stay and work in the U.S., and hoped to eventually become citizens. But they were told in March that Kevenson’s work permit was ending April 24. An ensuing court order left even many employers unsure if people could keep working.

Kevenson had gone to trucking school after arriving in the U.S., and fell hard for a Kenworth.

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The truck had taken him across immense swaths of America, taught him about snow, the dangers of high winds and truck stop etiquette. His employer owns the truck, but he understands it like no one else.

“It’s going to be my last week with my baby,” said Jean, his voice filled with sadness.

He looked miserable as he made his checks: oil, cables, brakes.

Eventually, he sat in the driver’s seat took off his baseball cap and prayed, as he always does before setting off.

Then he put his hat back on, buckled his seat belt and drove away, heading west on Route 60.

Days later, he got word that he could keep his job.

No one could tell him how long the reprieve would last.

Tim Sullivan can be reached at tsullivan@ap.org and http://x.com/ByTimSullivan