Good morning.
Donald Trump has piled pressure on his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, ahead of talks in Washington on Monday, saying the leader could end the war “almost immediately” if he wanted to.
The president’s comments were posted on his Truth Social platform on Sunday night, hours before he was due to meet Zelenskyy and the leaders of Britain, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the EU and Nato at the Oval Office.
Following his meeting with the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, on Friday, Trump also ruled out Ukraine joining Nato or recovering Russian-occupied Crimea. He posted on Sunday: “President Zelenskyy of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight. No getting back Obama given Crimea (12 years ago, without a shot being fired!), and no going into Nato by Ukraine. Some things never change!!!”
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Will it be one meeting or more? Two – Trump will first meet Zelenskyy at 1.15pm EDT in the Oval Office, before a summit with the European leaders at 3pm, the White House said.
Tens of thousands of protesters gather in Tel Aviv to demand end to Gaza war
Tens of thousands of demonstrators joined a protest in Tel Aviv on Sunday evening to demand an end to Israel’s war in Gaza and the release of hostages.
It is one of the largest demonstrations in Israel since the war began in October 2023, coming on a day of nationwide protests and a general strike to pressure the government into ending the conflict. While police did not confirm the figure, the demonstration’s organizer, the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, claimed that about 500,000 people joined the demonstration in Tel Aviv.
Judge restrains Beto O’Rourke’s group from sending funds to Democrats outside Texas
A Texas judge has barred former congressman Beto O’Rourke and his political organization from sending money out of the state after it fundraised for Democratic state lawmakers who left Texas to prevent a session on congressional redistricting.
Conservative Tarrant county judge Megan Fahey said that financial institutions and political fundraising platforms, including ActBlue, the main online platform for Democrats, are “immediately restrained from removing any property or funds that belong to, or are being held for”, O’Rourke or Powered by People “from the state of Texas”.
Many Texas Democrats have been in Chicago since early August, each racking up fines of $500 a day for missing a session called by the Republican Texas governor, Greg Abbott, that would probably give Republicans five seats after next year’s midterm elections. O’Rourke said “more than 55,000 donations” had come in since their walk-out.
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How else are Democrats resisting the Texas plan? California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, last week revealed a plan last week to redraw his state’s map to potentially add five safe Democratic seats in Congress – but will only go ahead if Texas does.
In other news …
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An angler on the Mississippi River in Minnesota has helped solve a nearly 60-year-old missing person case after he spotted a submerged vehicle, according to the authorities and local news.
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Democrat-run cities are preparing their response in case the Trump administration decides to stage a takeover and send in the national guard as it has done in Washington DC.
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Two rightwing candidates will compete for the Bolivian presidency in a runoff race, after the leftist party was excluded following nearly two decades in power.
Stat of the day: English councils have left a third of the budget to house Ukrainian refugees unspent
Despite thousands of Ukrainian refugees facing homelessness in England, £327m (about $443m) of the funding given to councils to help them into housing has not been spent – about a third of the total budget. Three years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian refugees were more than twice as likely as British people to experience homelessness.
Don’t miss this: How Kate Price uncovered the horrifying truths of her childhood
For as long as she can remember, Kate Price was sexually abused by her father. This only ended when he left the family, when she was 12, and as an adult, she discovered that he had also drugged her and sold her to other men. Five decades on, Price, who is now an academic who researches the commercial sexual exploitation of children, has published her memoir, This Happened To Me, which at times reads like a detective story as she pieces together what was done to her – and the process of healing.
Climate check: How the sea is swallowing coastal villages in the Philippines
Residents of Hagonoy, a municipality on Luzon, the Philippines’ largest and most populous island, are seeing their homes and streets flooded more often as global heating causes sea levels to rise. Photographer Ezra Acayan depicts the impact on families’ daily lives in this powerful series.
Last Thing: ‘Skibidi’ and ‘delulu’’ among words added to Cambridge Dictionary
In a bizarre sign of their staying power, the latest terms from the TikTok lexicon to be added to the Cambridge Dictionary include “skibidi” and “delulu”. While the latter may be easier to parse, “skibidi” is less a definable word than a vibe. The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as “a word that can have different meanings such as ‘cool’ or ‘bad’, or can be used with no real meaning as a joke’, an example of its use is: ‘What the skibidi are you doing?’”
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