Tariff discussions would make Netanyahu the first foreign leader to travel to Washington in an attempt to negotiate a better deal
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is set to travel to Washington to meet with US president Donald Trump to discuss issues including tariffs, Gaza and the “Iranian threat”, his office has confirmed.
The meeting will take place on Monday, a White House official said on the condition of anonymity.
Biggest day of demonstrations yet by an opposition movement trying to regain momentum – key US politics stories from 5 April
Crowds of people angry about the way Donald Trump is running the country marched and rallied in scores of American cities on Saturday in the biggest day of demonstrations yet by an opposition movement trying to regain its momentum after the shock of the US president’s first weeks in office.
The so-called “Hands Off!” demonstrations were held in more than 1,200 locations in all 50 states by more than 150 groups, including civil rights organizations, labor unions, LBGTQ+ advocates, veterans and elections activists.
Nine children among the dead in strike on Kryvyi Rih residential area as Kyiv says Moscow’s claim it targeted military gathering is false. What we know on day 1,137
A Russian missile strike killed at least 18 people, including nine children, in a residential area of Ukraine’s central city of Kryvyi Rih on Friday, local officials said – one of Moscow’s deadliest attacks this year in the war. The strike in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s home town damaged residential blocks and sparked fires, the regional governor said on Telegram. More than 30 people, including a three-month-old baby, were in hospital, Serhiy Lysak said. At least 50 people were wounded, the emergency services said, adding that the figure was growing. Zelenskyy said rescue efforts were still under way and called on the west to exert greater pressure on Moscow. “All Russian promises end with missiles, drones, bombs or artillery,” he said in his nightly video address. “Diplomacy means nothing to them.”
Russia’s defence ministry said the strike on Kryvyi Rih was targeted at a military gathering, a claim the Ukrainian military denounced as “false information”. “The missile struck a residential area with a playground,” the military’s general staff said on Telegram. The city’s military administrator said after the strike that Russian drones had later attacked private homes there, triggering fires at four sites. Oleksandr Vilkul said an elderly woman had died in her home and five others were injured.
The US secretary of state said Donald Trump was not “going to fall into the trap of endless negotiations” with Russia over Ukraine, adding Washington would know within weeks whether Moscow was serious about pursuing peace. “We’re testing to see if the Russians are interested in peace,” Marco Rubio told journalists in Brussels on Friday after talks with Nato allies. “Their actions – not their words, their actions – will determine whether they’re serious or not, and we intend to find that out sooner rather than later.” Pjotr Sauer reports that Rubio also appeared to strike a more sympathetic tone towards Kyiv, saying the Ukrainians “have shown a willingness to enter, for example, into a complete ceasefire”.
The Kremlin said on Friday that Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump had no plans to talk after a visit to Washington by the Russian president’s investment envoy as wider negotiations over a Ukraine truce appeared stalled. According to NBC News on Thursday, Trump’s inner circle was advising him not to speak to Putin again until the Russian leader commits to a full ceasefire in Ukraine.
Ukraine and Russia accused each other of fresh attacks on energy infrastructure, in breach of a US-brokered moratorium. Zelenskyy said Moscow launched a drone attack on a thermal power plant in Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson on Friday, while Russia’s defence ministry accused Kyiv of attacking Russian energy facilities six times in the past 24 hours.
Ukrainian air defences shot down 51 out of 92 drones launched by Russia in overnight attacks on Ukraine on Saturday, the Ukrainian air force said. Damage was recorded in the Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk regions, it said. Thirty-one other Russian drones were “lost”, usually a reference to them being intercepted or blocked electronically.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday that European military planners could be ready within a month with details of a foreign troop contingent in Ukraine seen as critical to ending the war with Russia. Speaking to reporters in Kyiv after meeting British and French military chiefs, the Ukrainian president said many other countries would also contribute to the effort, which envisages foreign troops patrolling Ukrainian land, sea and airspace. “I think the teams need about a month, no longer, and we will be fully ready with an understanding of this infrastructure.”
The Vatican’s foreign minister spoke with his Russian counterpart on Friday to discuss the war in Ukraine and plans to stop the fighting, the Vatican said. Russia’s foreign ministry later said the phone call between Sergey Lavrov and Archbishop Paul Gallagher had been initiated by the Vatican and that they had discussed “ways to resolve the Ukrainian crisis with the obligatory reliable elimination of its root causes”.
Millions in grants that would promote diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives may be frozen following ruling
The US supreme court is letting the Trump administration temporarily freeze $65m in teacher-training grants that would promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in a 5-4 decision.
The decision came down on Friday afternoon, with five of the court’s conservatives – Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh – in the majority. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson all dissented.
The white nationalist has been in Trump’s orbit for years, although the White House has tried to sideline her at times
Laura Loomer, a rightwing extremist and political influencer known for her incendiary social media presence, appeared to have been sidelined at points by Donald Trump’s election campaign and then by his new administration.
But she has long had the US president’s ear and may have it again, at least for now.
Dangerous weather comes after Trump administration job cuts left nearly half of offices with 20% vacancy rates
Donald Trump on Friday approved an emergency declaration for Kentucky as the central US braces for what experts in the region have warned could be a “generational” flooding event, as severe spring storms that have killed at least seven continue to wreak havoc.
Millions are affected across a swath of the US stretching from Texas to Ohio, and the powerful storm system that has raged for two days is expected to stall over the country’s midsection, the National Weather Service (NWS) said, fueling further deluges and possible tornadoes in areas already drenched from thunderstorms bringing heavy rains.
Rap mogul has pleaded not guilty to charges of racketeering and sex trafficking as trial begins in Manhattan on 5 May
Sean “Diddy” Combs was hit with a new federal indictment on Friday charging the hip-hop mogul with five criminal counts including racketeering and sex trafficking, court records showed.
Combs had previously faced three criminal counts, to which he has pleaded not guilty and is in federal jail in Brooklyn awaiting trial in Manhattan federal court on 5 May.
The project in Uganda has captured the disastrous effects of the climate crisis on a vital source of water that is central to the lives and sacred beliefs of the local Bakonzo community
Lawmakers say dismissing head of US Cyber Command puts country at risk at a time of ‘unprecedented cyber threats’
Top congressional Democrats are protesting against the firing of Gen Tim Haugh as director of the National Security Agency (NSA), with one lawmaker saying the decision “makes all of us less safe”.
Haugh and his civilian deputy at the NSA, Wendy Noble, have been dismissed from their roles, the Washington Post reported late on Thursday, with CNN reporting likewise, both outlets citing multiple unnamed officials and other senior sources close to the matter who had requested anonymity.
Inspired by the landscapes of the French masters, Elger Esser captures the brooding seascapes and bucolic country scenes of his beloved countryside – with timeless results
Trump announces ‘reciprocal’ tariffs on largest US trading partners; Elon Musk may leave government role at end of 130-day cap. Here’s your roundup of key US politics stories from 2 April 2025
Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs on some of its largest trading partners on Wednesday, upending decades of US trade policy and threatening to unleash a global trade war on what he has dubbed “liberation day”.
Trump said he will impose a 10% universal tariff on all imported foreign goods in addition to “reciprocal tariffs” on a few dozen countries, charging additional duties onto countries that Trump claims have “cheated” America.
If you’ve just bought a pair of these rubber sandals, you may want to think twice before wearing them down to the beach
Name: Flip-flops.
Age:They date from 1500BC, although the modern version is adapted from Japanese thonged sandals called zori, brought back by US soldiers returning from the second world war.
Experts are desperate to analyse rusty patched bumblebee nests for information that might help save them. But they are extremely hard to find – unless you’re a trained conservation canine
Words and photographs by Anne Readel in Somers, Wisconsin
On a summer day in Somers, Wisconsin, Dave Giordano heard an unexpected buzzing in his back yard. What he found shocked him – a rusty patched bumblebee nest. The discovery was so rare it made the local news.
Once widespread across the midwest and eastern US, the rusty patched bumblebee has seen its population plunge by nearly 90%, prompting its listing in 2017 as the first federally endangered bumblebee in the US.
Main image: Two rusty patched bumblebee gynes in the nest discovered by Dave Giordano in August 2023. Below: Jay Watson, a conservation biologist, observes a nest (marked with orange flags) found in a rodent burrow
Photographer Sarah Mei Herman was 20 when her half-brother Jonathan was born – she spent the next two decades capturing intimate moments between him and their father
Elections in Wisconsin and Florida seen as reflection of Trump’s standing with voters. Here’s your roundup of key US politics stories from 1 April 2025.
Republican Randy Fine won a special election for a House seat in Florida vacated by Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, which will help Republicans preserve their razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives.
However, Democrats are likely to have performed better in the Republican district than they did in November, after their candidate Josh Weil put up a stiff challenge in the eastern coastal district that Trump carried by 30 percentage points in the November elections.
She dressed up as a bullfighter, sat in a window with two magpies and flew colossal flags of warning. We go inside a fascinating new exhibition of photographs by multimedia artist Rose Finn-Kelcey
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