Talks come after Witkoff led US discussions with Ukraine at weekend amid European concerns that Kyiv will be pressured to make concessions to Moscow

• US-Russia talks may pile pressure on Kyiv to make concessions, says EU foreign policy chief

• See all our Ukraine war coverage

Who is Steve Witkoff? The American property developer turned loyal envoy to the US president has had a friendship with Donald Trump dating back to a late-night encounter in a New York deli.

Now Witkoff is key to Trump’s efforts to secure a deal to end the war in Ukraine – and earlier helped broker the ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war.

Exclusive: Swedish carmakers push to retain target as Germany lobbies to help its own industry by softening cutoff date

As the battle lines harden amid Germany’s intensifying pressure on the European Commission to scrap the 2035 ban on production of new petrol and diesel cars, two Swedish car companies, Volvo and Polestar, are leading the campaign to persuade Brussels to stick to the date.

They argue such a move is a desperate attempt to paper over the cracks in the German car industry, adding that it will not just prolong take up of electric vehicles but inadvertently hand the advantage to China.

Conch-shell trumpets discovered in Neolithic settlements and mines in Catalonia make tone similar to french horn, says lead researcher

As a child, Miquel López García was fascinated by the conch shell, kept in the bathroom, that his father’s family in the southern Spanish region of Almería had blown to warn their fellow villagers of rising rivers and approaching flood waters.

The hours he spent getting that “characteristically potent sound out of it” paid off last year when the archaeologist, musicologist and professional trumpet player pressed his lips to eight conch-shell trumpets. Their tones, he says, could carry insights into the lives of the people who lived in north-east Spain 6,000 years ago.

Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff has arrived in Moscow and is due to meet the Russian president today

The king and queen’s visit to the former colony is the first by members of the Dutch royal family in nearly five decades

The Dutch king, Willem-Alexander, vowed on Monday that the topic of slavery would not be off-limits as he visits former colony Suriname, where the practice ended just over 150 years ago.

The king arrived in the capital Paramaribo on Sunday with Queen Maxima, a week after the small South American country marked 50 years of independence from the Netherlands.