Katie Zacharia’s maiden briefing was excruciating – at least her predecessor had delivered her propaganda hot

Well, that was weird. Katie Zacharia, the new White House press secretary, made her debut on the podium on Tuesday with all the warmth, wisdom and political dexterity of an AI avatar.

Zacharia was all stilted delivery, nervous tics and lack of eye contact. With an eerie lack of emotion, she served up pro-Trump talking points, took only three questions and vanished after 14 minutes. It was like the West Wing had turned into uncanny valley.

District judge Ana Reyes halts tree-cutting at the East Potomac golf course until 26 October, and now requires advance notice before making course changes

US district judge Ana Reyes on Tuesday ordered a halt to tree-cutting at the East Potomac golf course until 26 October, putting a further pause on work at the historic Washington DC course that has been part of Donald Trump’s plans to remake the country’’s capital city.

Reyes issued the order one day after a tense three-hour hearing in which she harshly criticized the government for having deceived her with its actions over the holiday weekend.

When asked about the decision to request US ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle's resignation, Donald Trump told the press she 'was doing a good job' but that the administration 'didn't like what we were reading', referring to allegations that Guilfoyle had asked a Trump donor to pay her credit card bill. Guilfoyle, who was once engaged to Trump’s son, Donald Jr, was a longstanding political ally

• Kimberly Guilfoyle steps down as US ambassador to Greece after alleged misconduct

Ukraine has loosened its reliance on Washington but still depends on the United States in three military areas that let US President Donald Trump keep pressuring Kyiv, The Telegraph wrote on 12 October. That pressure now centers on the energy ceasefire Trump declared on 11 October, with US officials reportedly warning Kyiv not to hit Russian energy during the truce. Kyiv backs a mutual truce, but Moscow has not confirmed it, and Russian strikes on Ukraine’s grid have continued.

The paper named three such ties: satellite intelligence, Patriot interceptors, and American weapons bought with European money. A pause in any of them would hit just as Russia’s winter campaign begins. Ukraine says an intercepted document reportedly lays out up to 1,000 Russian missiles, drones, and bombs for 60 critical sites this winter, so any pause in US intelligence, interceptors, or PURL deliveries would land as that campaign gets under way.

Satellite intelligence: the US still holds the key

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other US services still pass precise satellite data that help Ukrainian forces hit targets inside Russia, by the paper’s estimate. Trump briefly suspended that flow in March 2025 to pressure Zelenskyy. A Ukrainian official told Axios that Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner threatened during 9 October talks in Miami to cut off US intelligence.

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Russian ballistic missiles hit Kyiv before sirens, gap that lands hard amid fears that Washington could cut data that warns of launches

Patriot interceptors: no quick substitute

The Telegraph called interceptor missiles the second and probably sharpest dependency. Only American Patriot systems can down Russia’s most powerful missiles, which strike Ukrainian cities daily, the paper wrote. Kyiv’s PAC-3 stocks ran dry mainly because US reserves were diverted to the Middle East after America’s war against Iran, the paper added. Kyiv had warned in March that a long Middle East war would squeeze its PAC-3 supply.

Five European defense firms—Destinus, MBDA Deutschland, Safran, Airbus, and Thales—signed a letter of intent in July to develop a joint interceptor, but a testable prototype is not expected before next year, the paper wrote. Ukraine is also building its own interceptor with European allies under the FREYJA program.

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The night Trump announced a diesel deal with Putin, drones knocked out more than half the tanks at a Russian fuel-export terminal

US arms bought with European money

The third is buying American arms with European money through the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL), a NATO-run purchasing scheme. US officials have reportedly warned Europe that Trump may halt those supplies if Ukraine keeps striking Russian oil refineries.

Democrats have described a raid on the home of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar as “deeply disturbing” and a “rogue abuse of power” by the Trump administration. The Democratic representative for Minnesota has long been a target of highly personal attacks by Donald Trump, who claims he was not involved in ordering the Justice Department raid. Omar criticised the raid as an attempt to “weaponize law enforcement” as part of a “campaign of political intimidation” against her. Lucy Hough speaks to Guardian US political reporter Shrai Popat – watch on YouTube

The Maga member believes the 2020 election was stolen and seemingly her new boss is saving the world from a cabal of satanic paedophiles. She’ll fit right in then

Poor Donald Trump. His (third) wife seemingly can’t bear to be near him and his (fifth) press secretary recently abandoned him to be with a baby she had only recently met.

“She decided she loved her children more than she loved Donald Trump,” the president lamented in August when Karoline Leavitt decided to step down a few months after giving birth. “I’m very upset about this. She has to go home and spend time with her children. That does happen on occasion with some people – when they love their children.”

Russian meddling probably didn’t affect the referendum result – but the Kremlin’s motives for wanting to undermine the EU still matter

Russian territorial aggression against Ukraine didn’t feature much in the Brexit referendum campaign. It made headlines briefly when Boris Johnson blamed Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea on the European Union.

According to the Vote Leave frontman, Vladimir Putin’s land grab was a consequence of Brussels making foreign policy “on the hoof” and having “pretensions to running a defence policy”.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

White House told Guilfoyle, who is alleged to have sought a bill payment from a Trump donor, to resign from post

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Kimberly Guilfoyle is stepping down as US ambassador to Greece after weeks of reports that she sought payment from a Trump donor in exchange for access to administration officials.

The decision, announced by the White House on Tuesday morning, ends the diplomatic career of one of Donald Trump’s longest-standing political allies. It came after the US president and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, were reported to have grown furious over the allegations.

Sean Duffy targets bike lanes and immigrant truck drivers while steering funds away from addressing lethal US roads

Barbara McCann may have been the first person to notice that the Federal Highway Administration had removed several safety policies from public view.

McCann worked on road safety policy at the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) for more than a decade across multiple administrations, retiring in January 2025 just before Donald Trump’s second term started. After Sean Duffy, the president’s ally and former Fox news host, took the wheel at USDOT, she became increasingly worried as the secretary appeared unmotivated to address pedestrian safety and regularly bashed bike infrastructure.

Ukrainian forces hit 12 large Russian refineries in September, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense said, according to ArmyInform on 12 October. The farthest on the ministry’s list, Lukoil’s refinery in Perm, lies about 1,500 kilometers from Ukraine’s border. Since Trump's 11 October announcement, Euromaidan Press has found no reports of new Ukrainian refinery strikes in the official and unofficial Ukrainian and Russian sources it monitors.

A refinery-for-refinery pause would limit Ukraine’s ability to disrupt Russia’s oil industry while leaving Moscow free to keep attacking Ukraine’s energy system, giving Russia an advantage in a war where both sides use energy infrastructure as a target. The issue has become urgent since Trump announced an “energy ceasefire” on 11 October, after which Ukraine reported holding off strikes on Russian energy facilities while Zelenskyy said Russia attacked several Ukrainian energy sites.

The campaign continued into October. Ukraine’s General Staff said Ukrainian forces struck the Samara oil pumping station overnight into 10 October, the third attack on the station that month, according to Radio Svoboda.

Ukraine held off, Russia hit six energy sites

Zelenskyy said Ukraine had refrained from striking Russian energy facilities overnight on 11–12 October following Trump's announcement. Monitoring channels and official Russian sources did not report any new refinery strikes on 13 October.

“Last night, we did not attack any energy facilities on the territory of Russia because President Trump said that there would be an energy ceasefire,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

He added that Ukraine does not announce its next operational steps. Zelenskyy said Russia attacked six Ukrainian energy facilities on 12 October alone, according to Radio Svoboda.

Refineries first, power plants possibly later

A White House official told Axios that the proposal would begin with both sides halting attacks on oil refineries, with a possible agreement covering power plants to follow. Axios reported that Russia had not accepted a ceasefire.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said the proposal, as described, would give Russia a major concession without offering Ukraine anything in return: Russia has scores of operating refineries, while Ukraine has one. ISW also said the proposal would allow Russia to continue its winter strikes on Ukrainian power stations.

The pre-midterm defenestration of ACA enrollees looks like political madness – but the president appears to believe hitting poor people might work for him

There is a manic quality to Donald Trump’s desperate dash to do something, anything, ahead of November’s midterm elections to convince beleaguered Americans that he can make the pressures his policies have imposed on their livelihoods go away.

The US president offered to lower barriers against beef imports to limit surging meat prices, only to consider backtracking under pressure from the cow lobby. He offered to stop diesel exports, only to find oil companies were not interested. He weakened fuel efficiency standards, claiming this would trim the price of a new car (and forgetting to point out it will also raise spending on gas.) In early October he started mailing $500 checks to nearly a million people touting his healthcare “wins”. Oh, and he promised adult Americans a $5,000 check if Republicans maintain control of Congress. That, too, will go nowhere.

A drone strike on 10 October put more than half of the large fuel tanks out of action at an oil-loading terminal in Russia’s Rostov-on-Don, Russian news Telegram channel Astra found. The terminal loads fuel onto river and sea tankers for export, and it burned for two days while a local channel wrote that reeds might be on fire. Neither Kyiv nor Moscow has officially acknowledged the hit. It came hours after US President Donald Trump announced a diesel deal with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Russia has spent the autumn hammering Ukraine’s power grid ahead of winter. Ukraine’s long-range drones keep hitting the refineries, depots, and terminals that fuel Russia’s army and earn it export revenue. Every burned tank turns that revenue into repair bills, while Moscow is already subsidizing its own fuel pumps. A refinery-only truce of the kind the White House described a day after the strike would shield the Russian plants that feed terminals like this one.

Seven of 12 tanks out of action

Astra’s analysts concluded from eyewitness footage that at least seven of the terminal’s 12 large tanks had been knocked out. Ukrainian monitoring channel Supernova+ counted seven burned-out tanks and one more scorched by the fire.

The fire was still burning in the early hours of 12 October. Local channel Rostov Glavny posted video of the burning tank farm, passing on rumors that reeds were on fire and noting the city’s second day under smoke, The Moscow Times reported. Footage filmed in the daytime on 12 October showed no more open flames, only gray smoke, according to Astra.

A terminal that loads fuel for export

The site is the oil-loading terminal of the Novoshakhtinsk Oil Products Plant, formerly known as Yug Rusi, in Rostov-on-Don’s Zheleznodorozhny District. It receives, stores, and transships fuel onto river and sea tankers, including for export, Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ said.

The terminal also supplies fuel to the Russian army and earns Moscow hard currency, ZN reported. The Moscow Times put its loading capacity at 3.5 million tons a year and its tank farm at about 60,000 cubic meters, roughly 16 million gallons.

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Trump’s Russian diesel deal, which drew fury in Ukraine, is unlikely to lower prices, experts say

The refinery itself stands in the town of Novoshakhtinsk near the border with Russian-occupied Luhansk Oblast. The terminal sits on the Don River with access to the Sea of Azov, Ukrainian military outlet Militarnyi noted. Ukraine hit the refinery in June, and Ukraine’s General Staff reported striking the Yug Rusi terminal on 9 July, placing it in Bataysk.

A night of drones over the region

Exilenova+ posted images of the burning terminal in the early hours of 10 October. It presented them as the site after Trump’s phone call with Putin. The channel later shared NASA satellite fire data showing the blaze.

Rostov Oblast Governor Yuri Slyusar claimed the attack injured six people. Slyusar further stated air defenses downed more than 100 drones over the region. Radio Liberty’s Russian Service noted that neither side had officially confirmed the hit on the terminal.

Hours after the US-Russia diesel deal

The strike came hours after Trump announced on 9 October that Russia had agreed to supply diesel to US and global markets. The US Treasury then cleared the trade with a sanctions license.

On 11 October, Trump declared an “energy ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine. Under it, he expects Ukraine to stop striking Russian refineries, a White House official told Axios.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that evening that Ukraine’s armed forces had received all relevant orders. Neither Ukrainian monitoring channels nor Russian officials have reported a new strike on a Russian oil facility since. On 13 October, Zelenskyy said Ukraine was ready to guarantee an energy ceasefire if Russia took matching steps.

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Ahead of her White House podium debut, Katie Zacharia reportedly monitored Donald Trump’s public schedule every day, and monitored his Truth Social, and made sure she was on-air when she assumed he might be watching, according to Politico, citing a person familiar with the matter.

That source noted that and a number of high-profile conservative anchors – including from Fox News, Newsmax and OANN – also backed Zacharia for press secretary. She is now set to the sixth person to hold the role throughout both of Trump’s terms in office.

Away from the public eye, deportation planes at Youngstown-Warren and Akron-Canton airports carry hundreds of immigrants daily amid Trump’s ICE crackdown

Just after 10.30am on a recent weekday morning, a Bombardier CRJ200 Air Wisconsin aircraft landed at Youngstown-Warren regional airport.

Having made the 75-minute flight from Milwaukee, the 50-seater came to a halt and its twin engines fired down next to another Air Wisconsin plane and a larger Eastern Air Express Boeing 737, planes that flew in the evening before from Alexandria, Louisiana.

Trump’s reform law that seeks to make coverage harder to get, and to keep, includes working 80 hours a month

It is a date keeping US healthcare providers up at night: 1 January 2027.

As the midterm elections loom, everyone from hospital leaders and to patient advocates are focused on the New Year, when Republicans scheduled the most controversial elements of their healthcare reform law to go into effect.

Ukrainian drones have helped push Russia into its worst fuel crisis since the Soviet Union fell, The Washington Post (WaPo) reported on 11 October.

Diesel is where this war reaches American drivers. US President Donald Trump blames rising diesel prices mostly on Russia’s war in Ukraine, while experts blame mainly the US war with Iran. Some of his allies now accuse Kyiv of trying to sway the US midterms.

Drones go for the first stage of refining

The Washington Post looked at dozens of strikes between 1 April and 31 August. Three refinery experts then examined satellite images of 54 strikes with visible damage. In over half, the damage seems to be to the desalting and distillation units, known by the Russian acronym ELOU-AVT. These units clean the crude of water and salt, then split it into separate compounds, the first steps toward gasoline and diesel. More than a third appear to have hit secondary units, which turn those compounds into jet fuel, gasoline, and liquefied petroleum gas.

From April through August, drones struck two-thirds or more of the 36 big Russian refineries that S&P Global Energy tracks, a strike every third day. Some took as many as five hits. On 16 June, drones set the Moscow refinery’s distillation towers on fire. That strike and a second one days later kept the plant offline into September, WaPo reported, citing data firm Kpler. Ukraine targeted the refinery again on 20 September.

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Trump’s Russian diesel deal, which drew fury in Ukraine, is unlikely to lower prices, experts say

“We don’t need to hit the entire plant,” a Ukrainian drone battalion commander with the call sign Tango told The Washington Post. Ukraine knows where to strike so that a refinery stops and stays down, he said. His unit, Ukraine’s 1st Separate Center of Unmanned Systems, runs long-range strikes deep inside Russia.

Sanctions slow the repairs

The EU banned exports of oil-refining equipment to Russia the day after the 2022 invasion, and the US followed days later. WaPo reported that the bans cover the distillation and secondary processing units Ukraine keeps hitting. The bans make spare parts hard to get, Alexander Kolyandr of Eurasia Group told the paper, and the strikes come faster than repairs.

Since last year, Ukraine has doubled the size of each wave, decoys included, a person involved in the strike campaign told WaPo. The decoys are unarmed and draw Russian fire, wasting air-defense ammunition, WaPo explained. Without them, the person said, Ukraine would simply lose expensive systems. András Rácz of the German Council on Foreign Relations told WaPo that even if only 2–3% of drones get through, the damage is significant.

Pioneering computer scientist on why Trump is using ‘superintelligence’ wrong, whether AI could wipe out humanity – and how our biggest challenge will be accepting we’re not the only intelligent beings

Donald Trump is a “corrupt, senile felon” whose fixation on the term superintelligence proves he knows nothing about AI, said Geoffrey Hinton, “godfather” of the technology, in a wide-ranging interview where he doubled down on recent warnings that AI models pose an existential threat to humanity and scoffed at claims the industry could regulate itself.

The pioneering computer scientist, whose work helped lay the foundations of modern AI, has since become one of the technology’s most vocal critics. His latest remarks come after a tumultuous month during which a growing list of senior AI scientists and researchers have joined Hinton in ringing the alarm about how the technology he helped create could ultimately escape human control, sparking an industry crisis, the hasty assembly of congressional meetings and a rare global consensus that something must be done.

Russian munitions brought down a stairwell of an apartment building in Kharkiv on the evening of 12 October, and rescuers recovered three bodies from the rubble overnight, local authorities reported. Survivors described fire, falling glass, and pets left behind. The strike came days after Washington waived sanctions on Russian diesel, as it expects Kyiv to stop hitting Russian refineries.

Russia hits Ukraine’s cities every day as it readies a winter campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure, and its oil exports keep bringing in the money that pays for the drones and missiles. A halt to Ukraine’s refinery strikes with no matching halt to Russia’s strikes would leave Moscow’s fuel income intact while Kharkiv digs through rubble. Estonia’s prime minister has already urged Europe to help Ukraine destroy those refineries instead.

A stairwell gone in Kholodnohirskyi district

Russian munitions hit Kharkiv’s Kholodnohirskyi district repeatedly from around 21:17, and Mayor Ihor Terekhov preliminarily identified them as Banderols. At 22:21, he said one strike had hit a residential building, possibly trapping people. He then added in a follow-up post: “Very serious destruction—an entire stairwell has collapsed.”

The strike destroyed an entrance of the four-story building, the State Emergency Service (DSNS) said. It counted 11 injured across the city’s evening strikes, and a rescuer was hospitalized, while Terekhov put the number at 10. By 06:56 on 13 October, rescuers had found a third body. Oblast head Oleh Syniehubov confirmed three dead and said the search continued. Experts will check whether the building is still fit to live in, he added.

Over 24 hours, Russian attacks killed three people in Kharkiv and injured 37, including two children treated for acute stress, Syniehubov reported.

“I realize I’m on fire”: two residents recall the strike

Larysa Maksimenko had just put her bedridden husband to sleep when the strike hit, she told Suspilne Kharkiv. She suffered a head wound and burns.

“I went to the kitchen to switch on the kettle for myself, to have some coffee. I realize I’m on fire. Then glass fell on me. I came to, and I’m buried under everything. All covered in blood,” she said.

The window bars were broken, and medics carried her husband out through the window. Rescuers later found a woman under the rubble in her apartment, likely a neighbor, Maksimenko said. All she wants now, she said, is to get to her husband in hospital.

Viacheslav Chibitko, who lives on the second floor next to the collapsed entrance, saw a flash, and then everything blew out. He got his three dogs out, but five cats are still inside. During the clearing, a concrete slab fell on a rescuer, Suspilne’s correspondent reported. Crews pulled him out and handed him to medics.

Kyiv’s toll rises, and strikes hit other cities overnight

The evening drone strike on a 25-story building in Kyiv’s Darnytskyi district killed two people, Kyiv prosecutors reported. The second victim was found dead in a car near the building. Prosecutors counted at least seven injured, including a 17-year-old girl, while Mayor Vitali Klitschko counted 11 in the capital.

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Russian ballistic missiles hit Kyiv before sirens, gap that lands hard amid fears that Washington could cut data that warns of launches

From 18:00 on 12 October, Russia launched five ballistic missiles, nine loitering munitions, and 108 attack drones, Ukraine’s Air Force reported. Air defenses downed or suppressed 88 drones. A Russian drone attack injured four patients at a medical facility in Khmelnytskyi Oblast, oblast head Serhii Tiurin said. In Dnipro, a Russian attack injured a 64-year-old man, oblast head Oleksandr Hanzha reported. A downed Russian drone set two houses on fire in Murovane near Lviv, oblast head Maksym Kozytskyi said.

On 12 October, a Russian Smerch rocket with a cluster warhead hit a house in Cherkaske, Donetsk Oblast, killing three people, including a 13-year-old girl, oblast head Vadym Filashkin reported.

Russian attacks killed more than 150 people in the week to 11 October, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. Russian bombs killed at least 20 people in Zaporizhzhia on 10 October, by the oblast’s count. On 9 October, the US waived its sanctions on Russian diesel until April 2027. The White House expects Kyiv to halt refinery strikes under its proposed energy ceasefire.

Top House Democrats question the ‘corrupt weaponization’ of federal government against Trump’s adversaries

Ilhan Omar’s Democratic colleagues have condemned federal agents’ search of the Minnesota congresswoman’s home on Monday morning, describing it as “deeply disturbing” and emblematic of the Trump administration’s “corrupt weaponization” of the US government.

House Democratic leaders, including the minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, party whip Katherine Clark and caucus chair Pete Aguilar, issued a joint statement excoriating the president for the search.

Ana Reyes demands Trump officials explain East Potomac tree cutting saying it will probably cause ‘irreparable harm’

US district judge Ana Reyes on Monday ordered a 24-hour halt to tree cutting at the historic East Potomac golf course while she decides on an emergency order from plaintiffs concerned that Donald Trump’s plans for the course are moving forward despite a pending court case challenging them.

“Tree removal for routine maintenance is not exempt from this order,” Reyes wrote. “Plaintiffs are likely to suffer immediate and irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief.

Seven US senators from both parties said the Trump administration's decision to authorize Russian diesel imports conflicts with a 2022 law banning Russian energy imports and accused it of failing to consult Congress, in a statement on 11 October.

The dispute comes as the war with Iran drives up US fuel prices, which US President Donald Trump has blamed on Ukraine's strikes on Russian refineries. Trump says Russian supplies will help bring prices down, while lawmakers warn that purchases could provide Moscow with revenue to continue its war against Ukraine.

The senators—Republicans Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Thom Tillis, and John Curtis, and Democrats Jeanne Shaheen, Richard Blumenthal, and Ron Wyden—called on the administration to reverse course, saying the US should not provide Russian President Vladimir Putin with “a financial lifeline.”

What the 2022 law requires before the ban can end

The law, signed on 8 April 2022, allows the president to end the import ban only after submitting a certification to Congress. The certification must find that Russia has agreed to pull out its forces and stop the fighting on terms Ukraine's free and independent government accepts, no longer poses an immediate threat of attack to any NATO member, and recognizes Ukrainians' right to pick their own government.

The law also requires consultation with four congressional committees and a report at least 45 days before certification. The termination takes effect 90 days after certification unless a joint resolution of disapproval is enacted into law during that period. The senators allege the administration failed to meet the consultation and reporting requirements. Their statement does not establish whether a certification has been submitted.

Treasury’s license cites sanctions rules, not the 2022 law

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control issued General License No. 135 on 9 October, authorizing certain transactions involving Russian-origin diesel that would otherwise be restricted under US sanctions regulations. It runs until 7 April 2027 and cites sanctions regulations, not the 2022 import-ban law.

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EU blacklists 1,569 Russian arms suppliers and their bosses in its biggest sanctions round ever, as Trump eases up on Moscow

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended the deal on Fox News on 11 October, saying the administration would proceed under existing legal authority. He said lawmakers who argued that either the earlier law or the current Lindsey Graham sanctions law prohibited the deal were wrong, and argued the agreement would lower prices, Reuters reported.

How much diesel Trump says Russia will supply

Trump said on Truth Social that Russia would immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel to US and global markets, followed by 500,000 tons in November and 1 million tons after that. He said Russia would deliver another 3 million tons “within a short period of time,” depending on the condition of its diesel refineries. The promised volumes have not been independently verified.

Russia partially lifted its diesel export ban on 10 October, allowing 500,000 tons onto the global market at this stage, the Russian government said, according to state news agency TASS.

A House bill to block Russian oil purchases

Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick plans to introduce the Ronald Reagan Peace Through Strength Act to block Russian oil purchases and use a discharge petition to force a House vote, Axios reported. The procedure can force consideration of a bill if 218 House members sign. Republican Rep. Don Bacon said he would support the bill and called Trump's decision a serious mistake, according to Ukrainska Pravda.

Barrasso defends the deal. Zelenskyy calls it an investment in war

On CBS's Face the Nation on 11 October, Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming, called the deal “another point of leverage” for Trump to use against Putin. Asked whether the decision violated US law, Barrasso said the president was balancing competing priorities and had to make tough decisions.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram on 9 October:

“Allowing Russia to sell petroleum products is an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged.”

Trump also expects Ukraine to stop striking Russian refineries under his proposed energy ceasefire, a White House official told Axios. Zelenskyy said Kyiv would halt such strikes if Moscow did the same.

Mayor calls for end to agency’s operations in city after agents shot and wounded man with five-year-old in car

The New York mayor, Zohran Mamdani, on Sunday compared US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s recent shooting of a man in the Manhattan enclave of Marble Hill to a mass shooting scene – and called for an end to the agency’s operations in his city.

Mamdani’s joined MS NOW’s Jacob Soboroff for his first media interview since ICE agents shot and wounded Oscar Belgal, 28, during an enforcement operation while he was in his car with his five-year-old child also inside.

The EU adopted its largest-ever round of sanctions listings on 12 October, targeting the suppliers behind Russia’s war industry, the Council of the EU announced. The bloc acted as Russia keeps killing Ukrainian civilians every day, while US President Donald Trump eases sanctions on Russian diesel.

Russia’s planned winter campaign against Ukraine’s infrastructure depends on arms factories fed by a web of component suppliers and on oil revenue that still flows despite Ukraine’s refinery strikes, so every supplier cut off from that web raises the cost of waging it. As Washington eases off, Europe’s own pressure has a gap: its ports still take record volumes of Russian Arctic gas, and a full ban on long-term contracts starts only in 2027.

Missile suppliers top the list

More than half of the new listings hit the supply chain for ballistic missiles that Russia “uses to kill Ukrainian civilians every day,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said in the statement. Russian attacks killed more than 150 people in the past week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on 11 October.

The list names 826 Russian companies, mid-level firms the Council calls the “core” of Russia’s arms industry, with at least €20 billion in yearly turnover, and 743 people who run them. They make parts for missiles, drones, and military aircraft, from semiconductors and radars to explosives and navigation systems. Their assets are frozen, EU firms may not finance them, and the executives may not enter the EU.

Foreign ministers ratified a deal EU envoys reached on 7 October. Ukraine’s sanctions commissioner Vladyslav Vlasiuk said 60% of the listings came from Ukrainian proposals.

Ministers reject the diesel deal

EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg vowed to keep the sanctions despite Trump’s diesel deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Euronews reported. Kallas addressed Washington directly as she arrived.

“The US is our biggest ally, but our message is clear: if we want to end this war, the only way we can do this is (by) putting more pressure on Russia,” Kallas said.

Irish Foreign Minister Helen McEntee called the deal “concerning,” and Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys said it was “not the European way.” Kallas warned that an energy truce covering only refineries would favor Russia, since Ukraine has one refinery and Russia “plenty.”

Trump announced the diesel deal on 9 October, and the US Treasury waived sanctions on Russian diesel until April 2027. Zelenskyy said the EU would provide about €3 billion more in military aid this week.

Washington presses Kyiv

Trump expects Ukraine to stop hitting Russian refineries under his proposed energy ceasefire, a White House official told Axios. Zelenskyy said Kyiv would halt such strikes if Moscow did the same. On 10 October, Trump told reporters it was time for Ukraine to get a new president. Germany’s foreign minister, Britain’s defense secretary, and a senior lawmaker from Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s party backed Zelenskyy, while the Kremlin sided with Trump.

Zelenskyy offered to hold elections after a 60-day ceasefire, and Kallas said elections are impossible while the war goes on. The Institute for the Study of War assessed that Russia exploits Ukraine’s legal ban on wartime elections to drag out the war.

Russia offers Ukraine a single day without strikes for its elections. Russian leader Vladimir Putin is ready to order a halt to strikes on Ukraine only on the day of a presidential election, if Kyiv decides to hold one, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov says, Russian state agency TASS reported.

The offer answers Ukraine’s call for a real pause: on 11 October, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated Ukraine could hold elections if Putin agreed to a full ceasefire of at least 60 days, ABC News reported. Against the backdrop of Russian strikes that killed more than 150 Ukrainian civilians in a single week, Moscow counters with a one-day truce confined to voting day.

“...If they really want to hold elections in Kyiv, the president of Russia, the supreme commander-in-chief, will be ready to give the order not to strike Ukraine on election day. Specifically on election day,” Peskov said.

His statements followed US President Donald Trump’s call on 10 October for Ukraine to choose a new president, saying a change of leadership could help reach peace with Russia, according to Suspilne.

Trump also criticized Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries amid his new agreements to supply a low volume of diesel into the US.

Moscow rejects the 60-day pause

Peskov has outright dismissed the longer truce. Ukraine needs 60 days not to hold elections but to heal its wounds and continue the war, he argues.

He has claimed Russia had been willing to resume peace talks after Russia’s own State Duma elections, but accused Ukraine of launching massive strikes on Moscow to disrupt that vote. Peskov has gone further, claiming Ukraine shelled polling stations and killed several members of district election commissions in the Russian-occupied regions it calls its own.

What Peskov left out

The accusations are Russia’s and remain unverified. Peskov offered no evidence for the claims about polling stations or election officials, which echo long-running Kremlin talking points.

He also made no mention of Russia’s own strikes on Ukrainian civilian targets over the same period, including attacks on energy sites and residential buildings.

New York judge also orders administration to cancel remaining portion of a $20m advertising purchase

A federal judge has ordered Donald Trump’s administration to temporarily halt the broadcast of taxpayer-funded television ads promoting the president ahead of the 3 November midterm elections.

Effective as of 6.45pm ET on Sunday, US district judge Jennifer L Rochon of the southern district of New York issued a temporary restraining order aimed at the ads that is meant to stay in effect for at least 14 days.

Trump and key allies have accused Omar of immigration fraud, and have called to expel her from the country

Federal agents searched Representative Ilhan Omar’s home on Monday morning as part of a criminal investigation, according to the Department of Justice and reports in the Associated Press and Fox News.

In a social media post later on Monday, Omar criticized the raid as an attempt by the Trump administration “to target political enemies and weaponize law enforcement” and said she would “not be silenced”.

Russia suffered vastly more casualties than Ukraine in September, a senior NATO military official told Bloomberg. Ukraine’s General Staff put the month’s Russian toll only slightly lower.

September’s toll lands on a recruitment system that was already falling short. Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) estimated that Russian losses outran new contracts in June and July, when monthly losses ran lower. In August, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, citing military intelligence, warned that Russia is preparing a mass call-up after its parliamentary elections. That vote ended on 20 September.

Where the numbers come from

Russian casualties passed 50,000 in September, up to 28,000 of them killed, the official said. Ukraine’s losses over the same month came to about 5,000, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Russia does not release casualty figures, Bloomberg noted. In late August, Pavlo Palisa, deputy head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office, put Russia’s July losses at 43,000 killed and wounded. Bloomberg could not confirm his figures.

To push forward, Russia keeps feeding troops into “kill zones,” the official said. These are stretches of ground saturated with armed drones, mines, and artillery fire. Maksym, call sign Rumyn, is a deputy company commander in the 46th Airmobile Brigade’s drone battalion. In April, he said the zone once ran 3–5 km deep and is now several times larger.

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Ukraine suffered 10 times fewer casualties than Russia in Vivaldi counteroffensive, veteran says. Ukraine’s innovations in drone and ground robot tactics are changing frontline warfare

Rising stakes for Moscow

Russia’s defense spending is expected to near $199 billion this year, Bloomberg reported, citing two sources close to the government. That is about 40% above the plan the government set in late 2025.

Russian President Vladimir Putin would struggle to wind down the invasion without a political cost, Martin Jäger said last week. He heads Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND).

Ukrainian leader says he was surprised by Trump’s ‘energy ceasefire’ announcement, posted as Russian drones hit Kyiv

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vowed to respond to Russia’s continuing attacks on the Ukrainian power grid as European leaders rally around Kyiv amid a feud with Donald Trump over Ukraine’s strikes on oil refineries.

Speaking to a gathering of European security officials in Warsaw on Monday, the Ukrainian president said Kyiv would retaliate if strikes on its power grid continued: “If Russia does not agree to an energy ceasefire this winter, we will respond.”

Senior official says president and US secretary of state are ‘extremely pissed off’ by conduct of US envoy to Greece

Donald Trump and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, are considering firing US ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle after a series of reports alleging she has engaged in improper and possibly illegal conduct before and during her tenure in Athens.

A senior US official said Sunday that Trump and Rubio are “extremely pissed off” by Guilfoyle’s reported conduct and would likely decide on what action to take this week after Monday’s federal holiday.

Democratic Senate candidate’s remarks come as Trump has long baselessly claimed his 2020 election loss was stolen

Democrats must “win by massive numbers” during November’s federal midterm elections because Donald Trump and his Republican allies are bound to try to sow doubt about the integrity of the results, Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan said on Sunday.

El-Sayed’s comments on NBC’s Meet the Press came with the Democrats favored to win control of the House of Representatives during the 3 November midterms – and polls show that the party could also win Senate seats in states that traditionally elect Republicans and gain a majority there, too.

Russia hit the CHP-5 thermal plant in Kharkiv on the evening of 11 October. It came hours after US President Donald Trump announced an energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address.

Trump had announced the energy truce earlier that day, though Kyiv reported no part in any such deal, as well as Moscow. Yet in this one week, Russia carried out more than 200 strikes on Ukraine’s power generation and transmission and 17 on its gas and oil sites, killing more than 150 people and wounding more than 700, according to Zelenskyy.

“All day today, there were Russian Shaheds in the sky. There are Shaheds in the sky now, too. There were strikes by aerial bombs. There were strikes on our energy. Just now there was a strike on CHP-5 in Kharkiv,” Zelenskyy states.

Ukraine welcomes the agreement Trump announced and is ready to stop striking Russian energy if Russia does the same. For that to mean anything, he stresses, it has to become part of reality.

A one-word answer from Moscow

Ukraine has offered many de-escalation steps, Zelenskyy notes, but Russian ruler Vladimir Putin met them all with the same refusal. He voices hope that the Russian leader would finally tell the US, Ukraine, and the world something other than killing and deception, something that leads to a real and dignified peace.

Ukraine wants peace, and the question is whether Russia does. The Armed Forces have received all the relevant orders to defend the country, he confirms.

Allies line up fresh support

Zelenskyy says he also spoke with members of the US Congress and, the day before with the UK prime minister, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Norway’s prime minister, all of whom offered help.

Ukraine is also working with the EU on financing for its defense and budget stability, and preparing new steps on European integration.

A fuel deal with Vladimir Putin, and sanctions against the legal institution, ram home the president’s belief that might is right

On Friday, Donald Trump drove home his belief that might is right and the rule of law is an obstacle rather than an essential foundation stone of international order. First came the escalated assault on the international criminal court (ICC), sanctioning the body itself. Then he announced a deal with Russia to buy diesel.

The US has long chafed at the notion of being bound by the rule of law that it espoused publicly. That hypocrisy now appears as a lesser vice. The president has declared that “my own morality” is all that constrains him. His brazen flouting of the law, embrace of dictators and rhetorical attacks all undermine global standards.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Analysts say fuel will take weeks to ship and quantity is too small to affect prices, while full deal is unlikely to be met given damage to Russian refineries

• Trump announces partial ceasefire but Zelenskyy says deal is ‘news to me’

Donald Trump’s deal with Vladimir Putin to temporarily lift sanctions on US imports of Russian diesel will have little “meaningful” effect on motorists and businesses in the US and overseas, energy and foreign policy analysts have predicted.

The US president infuriated Volodymyr Zelenskyy when he announced the deal on Friday, writing on Truth Social that the agreement with his Russia counterpart to supply millions of tonnes of diesel was essential to reduce fuel prices in the US, which have soared after his decision to go to war against Iran.

US President Donald Trump has announced an immediate energy ceasefire in the war between Russia and Ukraine, saying both sides agreed to stop striking each other’s energy facilities, in a post on Truth Social. Ukraine, however, knew nothing about the deal.

Russia has spent the war hitting Ukraine's power plants, refineries, and grids, while Ukraine answered with strikes on its refineries and plants that produce missiles. If confirmed, a halt before winter would be a major break. Yet about seven minutes before Trump’s announcement, Russia struck at Kyiv’s thermal plant, cutting power to several districts of the capital at once.

“Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine. Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!” Trump wrote.

News for Zelenskyy

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Axios the announcement “was news" for him. But if Russians agree to an energy ceasefire, Ukraine will agree, he added. Moscow gave no immediate confirmation.

The announcement follows days of friction over energy. Washington has just eased sanctions on Russian diesel and pressed Kyiv to stop hitting Russian refineries, while Russian strikes killed more than 80 Ukrainian civilians in two days.

A truce no one in Kyiv confirmed

Zelenskyy had already signaled Ukraine’s terms. He said on Sunday that Kyiv was ready to stop striking Russian refineries if Moscow halted its attacks on Ukrainian energy, so the condition was on the table before Trump spoke, not settled by him.

If Trump negotiated it with Putin, then he should say when the ceasefire begins, Zelenskyy added, underlining that Ukraine had not been party to any such agreement.

Ukrainians greet it with doubt

The reaction in Kyiv was wary. Trump already declared an energy ceasefire once, and Putin broke it within five minutes, said Andrii Kovalenko, former head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, asking whether Trump was now “announcing it to himself.”

Meanwhile, lawmaker Yaroslav Zhelezniak called for an explanation, warning that Trump’s “energy ceasefire” might mean Ukraine stops hitting Russian refineries and tankers while Russia merely promises not to strike Ukrainian oil tankers it would struggle to find in the first place.

Ukraine’s president reportedly says Kyiv would accept a deal if Moscow does after US president posts announcement with no detail on social media

• Trump announces partial ceasefire in Ukraine war as Zelenskyy says deal is ‘news to me’

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The president of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has expressed her “full support for President Zelenskyy” amid calls for a ceasefire.

In a telephone call with the Ukrainian leader, von der Leyen posted on X that she “fully supported the call of President Zelenskyy for a ceasefire that would protect global food supplies and energy infrastructure in Ukraine and Russia.

“Ukraine supports the ceasefire, and it’s important for Russia to support it as well. We are awaiting details from the American side. From our Ukrainian side, there is always FULL support for de-escalation steps, protection of lives, and the necessary decisions to end the war and ensure lasting peace.”

Comments were among the most direct overtures by Trump to woo Democratic senator into his Republican party

Donald Trump on Saturday openly encouraged Democratic US senator John Fetterman to switch parties and become a Republican just weeks before the federal midterm elections could reshape control of Congress.

“I’d love to see him as a Republican,” the presidents told reporters at Joint Base Andrews as he returned to Washington DC from a rally in Tennessee. “He does better as a Republican than he does as a Democrat.”

Guardian staff contributed reporting

Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ spending cuts will be fully felt next year, but hospitals are already feeling the squeeze

Maternity wards across the United States are facing a wave of closures as cuts to federal Medicaid funding take effect, experts have warned.

According to analysis by the non-profit Protect Our Care, 52 maternity wards have closed since the HR1 bill was announced in July 2025, with a further eight having announced their upcoming closure.

This is no scoffing matter. The accelerating proliferation of advanced nuclear weapons is bringing ‘end times’ closer by the day

Humankind has fearfully and sometimes joyfully anticipated the end of the world ever since it began. The Bible’s Book of Revelation speaks of “end times”, a period of tribulation, war, famine, plague, floods and environmental catastrophe that may seem a less absurd prospect today than perhaps it once did. Islam, too, posits a fateful day of judgment or day of reckoning. Christian evangelicals believe that, in the final rapture, a chosen few – the righteous or the “elect” – will be saved while sinners burn. It’s a minority view. Matthew’s gospel predicts most people will defy, ignore or ridicule warnings of imminent Armageddon. Peter, another of Jesus’s disciples, agreed: “In the last days, scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.” Yet such worldly scepticism does not mean a universal cataclysm is less likely. It may make it more probable.

Donald Trump’s blanket denials of the dangers ostensibly posed by artificial intelligence, whose uncontrolled development is seen by some as the latest harbinger of apocalypse, could be interpreted as fulfilling Peter’s prophecy. This US president, the nearest thing the world has to a one-man doomsday machine, is a great one for scoffing and evil desires. In Robert Harris’s 2019 novel, The Second Sleep, a worried scientist lists half a dozen ways the world might end. They include devastating climate change, pandemic disease, a giant asteroid collision with Earth, or some other overwhelming calamity. Few heed the fictional scientist’s fears. In the event, what destroys him and almost everybody else is a disturbingly plausible cyber crash – a global digital and internet meltdown.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

David McCloskey’s new book depicts a calamitous collapse of the ‘special relationship’ – could things get darker still?

The “special relationship”, the time-honored emotional bond between the US and Britain that has sustained through war and peace, is in trouble.

The ties of history, culture and language that have bridged an ocean and bound the two countries politically for generations are fraying as perhaps never before – strained relentlessly by Donald Trump, who has gleefully sacrificed traditional alliances and diplomatic niceties on the altar of his “America first” agenda.

Investigation launched after five broadcasters last month ceased presidential coverage after CNN, MS Now and Politico were barred from White House

The US Department of Justice is investigating whether the decision of the White House television press pool to halt coverage of the US president, Donald Trump, last month violated antitrust law, an agency spokesperson said Saturday.

A spokesperson for the department said group boycotts among business competitors might violate US law. “The Antitrust Division is simply investigating to determine whether these news organizations have violated the antitrust laws,” they said.

Australia has no need to buy fuel from Russia, despite US President Donald Trump’s move to bring Russian diesel back to world markets. Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen says that imports from Russia will remain banned to ensure the country does not benefit from its invasion of Ukraine, Bloomberg reports.

Trump has agreed with Russia's President Vladimir Putin to release Russian diesel onto global markets, a move Ukraine says funds a war that has killed more than 80 Ukrainian civilians in two days.

“We don’t need or want Russian fuel in Australia. We do not want Vladimir Putin to benefit from this war in the Middle East. What the United States does is a matter for them, but we won’t be changing our approach,” Bowen said.

The deal Australia is turning down

Trump announced on 9 October a series of cargoes beginning this month totaling about 13.5 million barrels of Russian diesel. The release upends years of sanctions, as the White House looks for ways to tame soaring fuel prices before the US midterm elections.

Bowen draws a clear line between that approach and Australia’s. What the US does is its own affair, he stresses, but Canberra will maintain its arrangements with trading partners to keep Russian fuel out of the market.

Enough fuel to hold the line

Australia can hold out without Russian supply, Bowen argues. The country has 43 days’ worth of petrol, two days more than a week earlier, and 31 days’ worth of diesel, one day less, he notes.

He adds that Australia stays in close contact with domestic refiners to keep them running at full capacity. The stance lets Canberra wait out high prices rather than buy fuel that would send money to Moscow.

Australia’s fuel costs have stayed high since the war between the US and Iran disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the route that normally carries about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas.

Protesters spent months occupying an ancient cottonwood. Then a tense standoff with US border patrol came to a head

A 200-year-old cottonwood tree near the US-Mexico border, known as the “grandmother”, has been destroyed to make way for the construction of Donald Trump’s border wall, despite a months-long effort by protesters trying to save it.

In late July, land defenders began a tree-sit in the ghost town of Lochiel, Arizona, taking turns occupying a platform high in the tree’s canopy. The group remained there for more than 70 days.

Washington has put its sanctions on Russian diesel on hold. The US Treasury has authorized the sale, delivery, offloading, and import of Russian-origin diesel fuel, effectively suspending sanctions on that trade until 7 April 2027, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said on its website on 9 October.

The waiver lets Russian diesel back onto world markets and, Ukraine argues, hands Moscow fresh revenue for its war, which has killed more than 80 Ukrainian civilians in two days. Until now, it was unclear whether Washington would roll back the sanctions it imposed on Russia in 2022.

OFAC has issued the measure as General License 135, signed by the office’s director, Bradley Smith, according to the report. It authorizes transactions in Russian-origin diesel that sanctions would otherwise block.

The license sets one limit. It does not permit any debits from accounts at US financial institutions held by Russia’s central bank, its National Wealth Fund, or its finance ministry, the document says.

Trump’s promise of cheaper fuel

On 9 October, US President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that Russia would immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel, then 500,000 tons in November, and another million tons right after.

Moscow would later send the US up to 3 million more tons, depending on the state of Russia’s refineries, Trump added, framing the deal as a way to bring down energy prices.

Why the volumes fall short

Analysts say the amounts are too small to move prices much. Together, the first tranches would cover about a day and a half of US demand, while US diesel use alone runs near 16 million tons a month. Experts read the move as politics ahead of an election rather than a real shift in the market, pointing out that Trump cited volumes in tons, which look larger than the barrels traders track.

The deal drew fury in Kyiv, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it a weak decision by strong partners. The EU is moving the other way, with ambassadors approving the bloc’s largest sanctions package against Russia’s war machine, due for final adoption on 12 October.

US President Donald Trump said on 9 October that he had agreed with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to bring Russian diesel to world markets to lower energy prices. However, energy analysts say the deal, which drew fury in Ukraine, is unlikely to lower diesel prices meaningfully, CNN reports.

Trump wrote on social media that Putin would “immediately supply” more than 300,000 tons of diesel, with another 500,000 tons in November. Together, those volumes would cover about a day and a half of US demand, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Meanwhile, former head of the Center for Countering Disinformation Andrii Kovalenko says that US diesel consumption alone is about 16 million tons per month, and global consumption is roughly 120 million tons.

The US experts read the move as politics more than a market shift. Trump spoke in tons rather than barrels because the figure looks bigger to an ordinary observer, said Dan Pickering, founder of Pickering Energy Partners, calling it “more politics than a game changer.”

Doubts Russia can even deliver

Former US officials question whether Putin holds the diesel Trump described, as Ukrainian strikes strain Russia’s refineries. A former senior State Department official says it hardly matters whether the fuel arrives, because Putin “has already achieved the result he wants,” with Trump believing he has a pre-election card that could move markets.

Even if the fuel flows, it would be a temporary measure. Gregory Brew of Eurasia Group says that he suspects Putin expects Ukraine to halt its strikes on Russian refineries in return, and that he cannot imagine Zelenskyy agreeing.

A win for Putin without conditions

For Putin, the gain is plain, Kovalenko says: he pushes for sanctions relief and for no new US sanctions, all without any demand to end the war in Ukraine.

"Trump’s bet was more on the news itself, driving prices down somewhat, because, in reality, figures like these shouldn’t bring prices down," Kovalеnkо believes.

He adds that Trump will "make a big fuss about diesel ahead of the elections, nothing more," and that the average American is unlikely to feel any lasting effect.”

Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that allowing Russia to sell petroleum products abroad without securing a lasting de-escalation agreement would help finance Moscow's war against Ukraine.

He criticized the decision, calling it "a birthday gift for Putin," per Axios.

The next day after the announcement, Russia launched six bombs on Zaporizhzhia, killing 17 people.

The tourist attraction just unveiled an elaborate, full-scale overhaul to match Trump’s second-term aesthetic

Sitting behind a replica Resolute Desk, nine-year-old Sydney Wright posed for the camera like a future US president. “I love it,” she smiled. And what about the dazzling gold appliqués, gold leaf and gold trim surrounding her? “It’s cool.”

Sydney was among a steady stream of visitors on Thursday to The People’s House: A White House Experience, an interactive museum – with an orientation film narrated by The West Wing star Martin Sheen – at 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue, just 150 yards from the real thing.

US president suggests Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has not done enough to end war

Donald Trump has said Ukraine needs “a new leader”, a day after making a deal with Vladimir Putin to buy large quantities of Russian diesel.

The US president suggested Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not done enough to end the war with Russia and blamed him for high diesel prices in the US.

A Russian air strike with guided bombs on the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia has killed at least 17 people, including three children, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has tied the attack to a US decision to let Russian diesel reach world markets without demanding Moscow halt its strikes on Ukraine first.

On 9 October, President Donald Trump said that Russia would immediately supply more than 300,000 tonnes of diesel fuel to the US and global markets, a further 500,000 tonnes during November, and 1 million tonnes immediately thereafter. The move has already drawn criticism from US lawmakers in both parties.

“Today, Russia expressed its gratitude for the lifting of sanctions on diesel exports by dropping five guided aerial bombs on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram.

Zelenskyy vows to keep hitting refineries

These figures were accurate at the time the post was written. Later, the State Emergency Service reported that the death toll had risen by two. Meanwhile, Zelenskyy stated that Ukraine would not stop striking oil refineries that bring additional revenues for the Kremlin, which spends them on the war.

“There will be responses to Russian attacks. Thank you to everyone who is helping,” Zelenskyy concluded.

According to Zelenskyy, two of the injured are in critical condition, and doctors are fighting to save their lives. Information is also being verified regarding another 12 people who may have been at the strike site.

“Thirteen of our regions came under attack overnight. Residential buildings, infrastructure, and railway facilities have been damaged,” the Ukrainian leader said.

More pressure on Kremlin

Zelenskyy stressed that the latest Russian strikes further demonstrate the need to increase pressure on Russia. In his view, easing restrictions is interpreted by the aggressor as a signal that it can continue the war and attack Ukrainian cities.

“This night provided yet another confirmation that Russia interprets any easing of pressure as a signal that it can supposedly continue fighting and that it can supposedly drop bombs on cities,” he emphasized.

He also noted that Ukraine’s long-range strike capabilities are inflicting such losses on Russia and stressed that Ukraine would respond to Russian attacks.

President complains about not winning prize in year he started war with Iran and says: ‘We will not forget, Norway’

Donald Trump complained Friday about not winning the Nobel peace prize for 2026, a year in which he started a war with Iran.

At what was supposed to be a rally for other Republican candidates in Syracuse, New York, the US president devoted a long portion of his speech airing his grievances with the Nobel committee.

US president says agreement needed to lower fuel prices, but move likely to create fresh crisis with Ukraine and Nato allies

Donald Trump is on a fresh collision course with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European allies after his stunning agreement to buy Russian diesel upended years of US and western pressure on the Kremlin to end its war against Ukraine.

Zelenskyy reacted furiously to Trump’s announcement of the deal with Vladimir Putin on Friday, calling it “absolutely terrible” and “not fair and not honest”.

Judge says justice department policy of checking state voter rolls against a federal immigration database is unlawful

A federal judge ruled on Friday that the US justice department’s policy of collecting states’ unredacted voter rolls to check them against a federal immigration database is unlawful.

The ruling, by the US district judge Sparkle Sooknanan, was a setback for Donald Trump, who has pushed his administration to ramp up investigations into non-citizen voting ahead of the November midterm elections, with control of Congress at stake.