UK delays N Ireland election call to buy time for talks

By JILL LAWLESS
Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — The British government has delayed calling a fresh election in Northern Ireland, hoping to buy time to break an impasse over post-Brexit trade rules that has put the Belfast administration on ice. Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said he was giving lawmakers another few weeks to try to form a government and avert an election. He says he will slash the legislators’ salaries until they get the Northern Ireland administration back up and running. Northern Ireland has been without a government for months because the Democratic Unionist Party is boycotting power-sharing because it opposes checks on goods coming from the rest of the U.K. that were imposed as a result of Brexit.