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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Rev. Emanuel Cleaver III wants a second civil rights movement in response to President Trump and his fellow Republicans who are redrawing congressional district boundaries to increase their power in Washington.

In Missouri, the GOP’s effort comes at the expense of Cleaver’s father, Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, and many of his Kansas City constituents, who fear a national redistricting scramble will reverse gains Black Americans won two generations ago and will leave them without effective representation on Capitol Hill.

“If we, the people of faith, do not step up, we are going to go back even further,” the younger Cleaver told the St. James Church congregation on a recent Sunday, drawing affirmations of “amen” in the sanctuary where his father, also a minister, launched his first congressional bid in 2004.

Trump and fellow Republicans admit their partisan intent, emboldened by a Supreme Court that has allowed gerrymandering based on voters’ party leanings. Democratic-run California has proposed its own redraw to mitigate GOP gains elsewhere.

Yet new maps in Texas and Missouri — drafted in unusual mid-decade redistricting efforts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections — are meant to enable Republican victories by manipulating how districts are drawn.

Civil rights advocates, leaders and affected voters say that amounts to race-based gerrymandering, something the Supreme Court has blocked when it finds minority communities are effectively prevented from electing representatives of their choice.

“It’s almost like a redistricting civil war,” said NAACP President Derrick Johnson, whose organization is suing to block the Texas and Missouri plans.

‘Packing and cracking’

In redistricting lingo, it’s called “packing and cracking.” Those maneuvers are at the heart of Trump’s push for friendlier GOP districts as he tries to avoid reprising 2018, when midterms yielded a House Democratic majority that stymied his agenda and impeached him twice.

Because nonwhite voters lean Democratic and white voters tilt Republican, concentrating certain minorities into fewer districts — packing — can reduce the number of minority Democrats in a legislative body. By spreading geographically concentrated minority voters across many districts — cracking — it can diminish their power in choosing lawmakers.

The elder Cleaver, seeking an 11th term, said the Trump-driven plans foster an atmosphere of intimidation and division, and he and fellow Kansas City residents fear the city could lose federal investments in infrastructure, police and other services.

“We will be cut short,” said Meredith Shellner, a retired nurse who predicted losses in education and healthcare access. “I just think it’s not going to be good for anybody.”

Missouri’s U.S. House delegation has six white Republicans and two Black Democrats. The new map, which could still require voter approval if a referendum petition is successful, sets the GOP up for a 7-1 advantage.

Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe says the new map better represents Missouri’s conservative values. And sponsoring state Rep. Dirk Deaton says it divides fewer counties and municipalities than the current districts.

“This is a superior map,” the Republican legislator said.

Cleaver’s current 5th District is not majority Black but includes much of Kansas City’s Black population. New lines carve Black neighborhoods into multiple districts. The new 5th District reaches well beyond the city and would make it harder for the 80-year-old Cleaver or any other Democrat to win in 2026.

In Texas, Abbott insists no racism is involved

A new Texas map, which Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law, is designed to send five more Republicans to Washington, widening his party’s 25-13 advantage to a 30-8 one.

The old map had 22 districts where a majority of voters identified as white only. Seven were Latino-majority and nine were coalition districts, meaning no racial or ethnic group had a majority. By redistributing voters, the new map has 24 white-majority districts, eight Latino-majority districts, two Black-majority districts and four coalition districts.

Abbott insists new boundaries will produce more Latino representatives. But they’ll likely reduce the number of Black lawmakers by scrambling coalition districts that currently send Black Democrats to Washington.

Democratic Rep. Al Green was drawn out of his district and plans to move to seek another term. On the House floor, the Black lawmaker called GOP gerrymandering another chapter in a “sinful history” of Texas making it harder for nonwhites to vote or for their votes to matter.

Green said it would hollow out the Voting Rights Act of 1965 “if Texas prevails with these maps and can remove five people simply because a president says those five belong to me.”

The NAACP has asked a federal court to block the Texas plan. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act broadly prohibits districts and other election laws that limit minority representation.

The NAACP’s Johnson suggested Republicans are playing word games.

“Was this done for partisan reasons? Was it done for race? Or is partisanship the vehicle to cloak your racial animus and the outcomes that you’re pursuing?” he asked.

In Missouri, the NAACP has sued in state court under the rules controlling when the governor can call a special session. Essentially, it argues Kehoe faced no extenuating circumstance justifying a redistricting session, typically held once a decade after the federal census.

Saundra Powell, a 77-year-old retired teacher, framed the redistricting effort as backsliding.

She recalls as a first-grader not being able to attend the all-white school three blocks from her home. She changed schools only after the Supreme Court declared segregated schools unconstitutional in 1954.

“It seems worse 1758147903 than what it was,” Powell said.

Hollingsworth, Barrow and Ingram write for the Associated Press. Barrow reported from Atlanta. AP reporter John Hanna contributed from Topeka, Kan.

The Trump administration renewed its request Sunday for a federal appeals court to let him fire Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, a move the president is seeking ahead of the central bank’s vote on interest rates.

The administration filed a response just ahead of a 3 p.m. Eastern deadline Sunday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, arguing that Cook’s legal arguments for why she should stay on the job were meritless. Lawyers for Cook argued in a Saturday filing that the administration has not shown sufficient cause to fire her, and emphasized the risks to the economy and country if a president were allowed to fire a Fed governor without proper cause.

Sunday’s filing is the latest step in an unprecedented effort by the White House to shape the historically independent Fed. President Trump’s move to oust Cook marks the first time in the central bank’s 112-year history that a president has tried to fire a governor.

“The public and the executive share an interest in ensuring the integrity of the Federal Reserve,” Trump administration lawyers argued in Sunday’s filing. “And that requires respecting the president’s statutory authority to remove governors ‘for cause’ when such cause arises.”

Bill Pulte, a Trump appointee to the agency that regulates mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, has accused Cook of signing separate documents in which she allegedly said that both her Atlanta property and a home in Ann Arbor, Mich., also purchased in June 2021, were “primary residences.” Pulte submitted a criminal referral to the Justice Department, which has opened an investigation.

Trump relied on those allegations to fire Cook “for cause.”

Cook, the first Black woman to serve as a Fed governor, referred to the condominium as a “vacation home” in a loan estimate, a characterization that could undermine claims by the Trump administration that she committed mortgage fraud. Documents obtained by the Associated Press also showed that on a second form submitted by Cook to gain a security clearance, she described the property as a “second home.”

Cook sued the Trump administration to block her firing, and a federal judge ruled Tuesday that the removal was illegal and reinstated her to the Fed’s board.

The administration appealed and asked for an emergency ruling just before the Fed is set to meet this week and decide whether to reduce its key interest rate. Most economists expect they will cut the rate by a quarter point.

Suderman writes for the Associated Press.

President Trump on Monday continued to flirt with the idea of mobilizing National Guard troops to combat crime in Chicago, just a day after he had to clarify that he has no intent to “go to war” with the American city.

The push to militarize local law enforcement operations has been an ongoing fixation for the president, who on Saturday used war imagery and a reference to the movie “Apocalypse Now” to suggest that the newly rebranded Department of War could descend upon the Democrat-run city.

Trump clarified Sunday that his post was meant to convey he wants to “clean up” the city, and on Monday once again floated the possibility of deploying federal agents to the city — a move that Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, has staunchly opposed.

“I don’t know why Chicago isn’t calling us saying, please give us help,” Trump said during a speech at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. “When you have over just a short period of time, 50 murders and hundreds of people shot, and then you have a governor that stands up and says how crime is just fine. It’s really really crazy, but we’re bringing back law and order to our country.”

A few hours earlier, Trump posted on social media that he wanted “to help the people of Chicago, not hurt them” — a statement that Pritzker mocked as insincere, saying that Trump had “just threatened an American city with the Department of War.”

“Once again, this isn’t about fighting crime. That requires support and coordination — yet we’ve experienced nothing like that over the past several weeks,” Pritzker said in a post on X. “Instead of taking steps to work with us on public safety, the Trump administration’s focused on scaring Illinoisians.”

The White House did not respond when asked whether Trump would send National Guard troops to Chicago without the request from the governor. But the Department of Homeland Security announced in a news release Monday that it was launching an immigration enforcement operation to “target the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens in Chicago.”

For weeks, Trump has talked about sending the military to Chicago and other cities led by Democrats — an action that governors have repeatedly opposed. Most Americans also oppose the idea, according to a recent CBS/YouGov poll, but the Republican base largely sees Trump’s push as a means to reduce crime.

If Trump were to deploy U.S. forces to the cities, it would follow similar operations in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles — moves that a federal judge last week said was illegal and that amounted to Trump “creating a national police force with the President as its chief” but that Trump sees as victories.

In his Monday remarks, Trump claimed that he “saved Los Angeles” and that crime is down to “virtually nothing” in Washington because he decided to send military forces to patrol the cities. Trump downplayed instances of domestic violence, saying those are “much lesser things” that should not be taken into account when trying to discern whether his crime-fighting efforts have worked in the nation’s capital.

“Things that take place in the home, they call crime. They’ll do anything they can to find something,” Trump lamented. “If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say this was a crime. Now, I can’t claim 100%, but we are a safe city.”

Trump said “we can do the same thing” in other cities, like Chicago and New York City.

“We are waiting for a call from Chicago,” Trump said. “We’ll fix Chicago.”

As of Monday afternoon, Pritzker’s office had yet to receive any “formal communication or information from the Trump administration” about potential plans to have troops deployed into the city, said Matt Hill, a spokesperson for the Illinois governor.

“Like the public and press, we are learning of their operations through social media as they attempt to produce a reality television show,” Hill said in an email. “If he cared about delivering real solutions for Illinois, then we would have heard from him.”

Pritzker, in remarks posted on social media Sunday, said the Trump administration was trampling on citizens’ constitutional rights “in the fake guise of fighting crime.”

“Once Donald Trump gets the citizens of this nation comfortable with the current atrocities committed under the color of law — what comes next?” he said.

SEOUL, Sept. 4 (UPI) — Just one day after President Lee Jae Myung’s cabinet approved the so-called “Yellow Envelope Law” on Tuesday, Hyundai Motors’ union launched its first partial strike in seven years, demanding the company notify labor in advance of new business ventures and overseas plant expansions, The Korea Economic Daily reported.

The law, passed by the National Assembly on Aug. 24 and set to take effect in early 2026, expands the scope of legal strikes to include management decisions such as mergers, restructuring and plant relocations.

It also limits corporate damage claims against unions. Analysts say the Hyundai union’s push reflects the law’s immediate influence on labor tactics.

Hyundai shut down assembly lines Wednesday in Ulsan, Jeonju and Asan for four hours, affecting an estimated 1,500 vehicles, Maeil Daily reported. GM Korea and HD Hyundai shipbuilding unions also staged partial walkouts to protest restructuring moves.

Observers warn the law, intended to protect workers from excessive corporate lawsuits, could embolden unions to intervene in management strategy, heightening labor unrest across Korea’s key industries, Maeil Business Newspaper reported.

SACRAMENTO — Responding to the Trump administration’s aggressive and unceasing immigration raids in Southern California, state lawmakers this week began strengthening protections for immigrants in schools, hospitals and other areas targeted by federal agents.

The Democratic-led California Legislature is considering nearly a dozen bills aimed at shielding immigrants who are in the country illegally, including helping children of families being ripped apart in the enforcement actions.

“Californians want smart, sensible solutions and we want safe communities,” said Assemblymember Christopher Ward (D-San Diego). “They do not want peaceful neighbors ripped out of schools, ripped out of hospitals, ripped out of their workplaces.”

Earlier this week, lawmakers passed two bills focused on protecting schoolchildren.

Senate Bill 98, authored by Sen. Sasha Renée Peréz (D-Alhambra), would require school administrators to notify families and students if federal agents conduct immigration operations on a K-12 or college campus.

Legislation introduced by Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D-Rolling Hills Estates), AB 49, would bar immigration agents from nonpublic areas of a school unless they had a judicial warrant or court order. It also would bar school districts from providing information about pupils, their families, teachers and school employees to immigration authorities without a warrant.

A separate bill by Sen. Jesse Arreguín (D-Berkeley), SB 81, would bar healthcare officials from disclosing a patient’s immigration status or birthplace, or giving access to nonpublic spaces in hospitals and clinics, to immigration authorities without a search warrant or court order.

All three bills now head to Gov. Gavin Newsom for his consideration. If signed into law, the legislation would take effect immediately.

The school-related bills, said L.A. school board member Rocio Rivas, provide “critical protections for students, parents and families, helping ensure schools remain safe spaces where every student can learn and thrive without fear.”

Federal immigration agents have recently detained several 18-year-old high school students, including Benjamin Marcelo Guerrero-Cruz, who was picked up last month while walking his dog a few days before he started his senior year at Reseda Charter High School.

Most Republican legislators voted against the bills, but Peréz’s measure received support from two Republican lawmakers, Assemblymember Juan Alanis (R-Modesto) and state Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa). Muratsuchi’s had support from six Republicans.

“No person should be able to go into a school and take possession of another person’s child without properly identifying themselves,” Sen. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) said before voting to support the bill.

The healthcare bill follows a surge in cancellations for health appointments as immigrants stay home, fearing that if they go to a doctor or to a clinic, they could be swept up in an immigration raid.

California Nurses Assn. President Sandy Reding said that federal agents’ recent raids have disregarded “traditional safe havens” such as clinics and hospitals, and that Newsom’s approval would ensure that people who need medical treatment can “safely receive care without fear or intimidation.”

Some Republicans pushed back against the package of bills, including outspoken conservative Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego), who said that the raids that Democrats are “making such hay over” were triggered by the state’s “sanctuary” law passed in 2018.

The state law DeMaio attacked, SB 54, bars local law enforcement from helping enforce federal immigration laws, including arresting someone solely for having a deportation order, and from holding someone in jail for extra time so immigration agents can pick them up.

The law, criticized by President Trump and Republicans nationwide, does not prevent police from informing federal agents that someone who is in the country illegally is about to be released from custody.

“If you wanted a more orderly process for the enforcement of federal immigration rules, you’d back down from your utter failure of SB54,” DeMaio said.

Chino Valley Unified School Board President Sonja Shaw, a Trump supporter who is running for state superintendent of public instruction, said that the bills about school safety were “political theater that create fear where none is needed.”

“Schools already require proper judicial orders before allowing immigration enforcement on campus, so these bills don’t change anything,” Shaw said. “They are gaslighting families into believing that schools are unsafe, when in reality the system already protects students.”

But Muratsuchi, who is also running for superintendent, said the goal of the legislation is to ensure that districts everywhere, “including in more conservative areas,” protect their students against immigration enforcement.

A half-dozen other immigration bills are still pending in the Legislature. Lawmakers have until next Friday to send bills to Newsom’s desk before the 2025 session is adjourned.

Those include AB 495 by Assemblymember Celeste Rodriguez (D-San Fernando), which would make it easier for parents to designate caregivers who are not blood relatives — including godparents and teachers — as short-term guardians for their children. An increasing number of immigrant parents have made emergency arrangements in the event they are deported.

The bill would allow nonrelatives to make decisions such as enrolling a child in school and consenting to some medical care.

Conservatives have criticized the bill as an attack on parental rights and have said that the law could be misused by estranged family members or even sexual predators — and that current guidelines for establishing family emergency plans are adequate.

Also still pending is AB 1261, by Assemblymember Mia Bonta (D-Alameda), which would establish a right to legal representation for unaccompanied children in federal immigration court proceedings; and SB 841 by Sen. Susan Rubio (D-Baldwin Park), which would restrict access for immigration authorities at shelters for homeless people and survivors of rape, domestic violence and human trafficking.

WASHINGTON — Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse made their voices heard Tuesday on Capitol Hill, pressuring lawmakers to force the release of the sex trafficking investigation into the late financier and pushing back President Trump’s effort to dismiss the issue as a “hoax.”

In a news conference on the Capitol lawn that drew hundreds of supporters and chants of “release the files,” the women shared — some publicly for the first time — how they were lured into Epstein’s abuse by his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell. They demanded that the Trump administration provide transparency and accountability for what they endured as teenagers.

It was a striking stand as the push for disclosure of the so-called Epstein files reached a pivotal moment in Washington. Lawmakers are battling over how Congress should delve into the Epstein saga while the Republican president, after initially signaling support for transparency on the campaign trail, has been dismissing the matter as a “Democrat hoax.”

“No matter what you do it’s going to keep going,” Trump said Wednesday. He added, “Really, I think it’s enough.”

But the survivors on Capitol Hill, as well as at least one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress, disagreed. Some of the women pleaded for Trump to support their cause.

“It feels like you just want to explode inside because nobody, again, is understanding that this is a real situation. These women are real. We’re here in person,” said Haley Robson, one of the survivors who said she is a registered Republican.

Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial in 2019 on charges that said he sexually abused and trafficked dozens of underage girls. The case was brought more than a decade after he secretly cut a deal with federal prosecutors in Florida to dispose of nearly identical allegations. Epstein was accused of paying underage girls hundreds of dollars in cash for massages and then molesting them.

Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime confidant and former girlfriend, was convicted in 2021 and sentenced to 20 years in prison for luring teenage girls for him to abuse. Four women testified at her trial that they were abused by Epstein as teens in the 1990s and early 2000s at his homes in Florida, New York and New Mexico. The allegations have also spawned dozens of lawsuits.

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is usually closely aligned with Trump, described her support for a bill that would force the Justice Department to release the information it has compiled on Epstein as a moral fight against sexual predation.

“This isn’t one political party or the other. It’s a culmination of everyone work together to silence these women and protect Jeffrey Epstein and his cabal,” Greene said at the news conference.

She is one of four Republicans — three of them women — who have defied House GOP leadership and the White House in an effort to force a vote on their bill. House Speaker Mike Johnson is trying to quash the effort by putting forward his own resolution and arguing that a concurrent investigation by the House Oversight Committee is the best way for Congress to deliver transparency.

“I think the Oversight probe is going to be wide and expansive, and they’re going to follow the truth wherever it leads,” Johnson, R-La., said.

He added that the White House was complying with the committee to release information and that he had spoken with Trump about it Tuesday night. “He says, ‘Get it out there, put it all out there,’” Johnson told reporters.

The Oversight Committee on Tuesday night released what it said was the first tranche of documents and files it has received from the Justice Department on the Epstein case. The folders — posted on Google Drive — contained hundreds of image files of years-old court filings related to Epstein, but contained practically nothing new.

Meanwhile, the White House was warning House members that support for the bill to require the DOJ to release the files would be seen as a hostile act. Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who is pressing for the bill, said that the White House was sending that message because “They’ve dug in.”

“They decided they don’t want it released,” he said. “It’s a political threat.”

But with Trump sending a strong message and Republican leadership moving forward with an alternative resolution, Massie was left looking for support from at least two more Republicans willing to cross political lines. It would take six GOP members, as well as all House Democrats, to force a vote on their bill. And even if that passes the House, it would still need to pass the Senate and be signed by Trump.

Still, the survivors saw this moment as their best chance in years to gain some justice for what had been done by Epstein, who died in as New York jail cell in 2019 while facing sex trafficking charges.

“Justice and accountability are not favors from the powerful. They are obligations decades overdue” Jess Michaels, a survivor who said she was first abused by Epstein in 1991, told the rally on the Capitol lawn. “This moment began with Epstein’s crimes. But it’s going to be remembered for survivors demanding justice, demanding truth, demanding accountability.”

Groves writes for the Associated Press.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri lawmakers are meeting in a special session to redraw the state’s U.S. House districts as part of President Trump’s effort to bolster Republicans’ chances of retaining control of Congress in next year’s elections.

The special session called by Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe began Wednesday and will run at least a week.

Missouri is the third state to pursue the unusual task of mid-decade redistricting for partisan advantage. Republican-led Texas, prodded by Trump, was the first to take up redistricting with a new map aimed at helping Republicans pick up five more congressional seats.

But before Texas even completed its work, Democratic-led California already had fought back with its own redistricting plan designed to give Democrats a chance at winning five more seats. California’s plan still needs voter approval at a Nov. 4 election.

Other states could follow with their own redistricting efforts.

Nationally, Democrats need to gain three seats next year to take control of the House. Historically, the party of the president usually loses seats in the midterm congressional elections.

What is redistricting?

At the start of each decade, the Census Bureau collects population data that is used to allot the 435 U.S. House seats proportionally among states. States that grow relative to others may gain a House seat at the expense of states where populations stagnated or declined. Though some states may have their own restrictions, there is nothing nationally that prohibits states from redrawing districts in the middle of a decade.

In many states, congressional redistricting is done by state lawmakers, subject to approval by the governor. Some states have special commissions responsible for redistricting.

What is gerrymandering?

Partisan gerrymandering occurs when a political party in charge of the redistricting process draws voting district boundaries to its advantage.

One common method is for a majority party to draw a map that packs voters who support the opposing party into only a few districts, thus allowing the majority party to win a greater number of surrounding districts. Another common method is for the majority party to dilute the power of an opposing party’s voters by spreading them thinly among multiple districts.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that federal courts have no authority to decide whether partisan gerrymandering goes too far. But it said state courts still can decide such cases under their own laws.

How could Missouri’s districts change?

Missouri currently is represented in the U.S. House by six Republicans and two Democrats. A revised map proposed by Kehoe would give Republicans a shot at winning seven seats in the 2026 elections.

It targets a Kansas City district, currently held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, by stretching it eastward into Republican-leaning rural areas. Meanwhile, other parts of Cleaver’s district would be split off and folded into heavily Republican districts currently represented by GOP Reps. Mark Alford and Sam Graves. Districts also would be realigned in the St. Louis area but with comparatively minor changes to the district held by Democratic Rep. Wesley Bell.

Republican lawmakers had considered a potential 7-1 map when originally drawing districts after the 2020 census. But the GOP majority opted against it because of concerns it could face legal challenges and create more competitive districts that could backfire in a poor election year by allowing Democrats to win up to three seats.

Could other states join the redistricting battle?

Mid-decade redistricting must occur in Ohio, according to its constitution, because Republicans there adopted congressional maps without sufficient bipartisan support. That could create an opening for Republicans to try to expand their 10-5 seat majority over Democrats.

A court in Utah has ordered the Republican-controlled Legislature to draw new congressional districts after ruling that lawmakers circumvented an independent redistricting commission established by voters to ensure districts don’t deliberately favor one party. A new map could help Democrats, because Republicans currently hold all four of the state’s U.S. House seats.

Other Republican-led states, such as Indiana and Florida, are considering redistricting at Trump’s urging. Officials in Democratic-led states, such as Illinois, Maryland and New York, also have talked of trying to counter the Republican push with their own revised maps.

What else is at stake in Missouri?

A special session agenda set by Kehoe also includes proposed changes to Missouri’s ballot measure process.

One key change would make it harder for citizen-initiated ballot measures to succeed. If approved by voters, Missouri’s constitution would be amended so that all future ballot initiatives would need not only a majority of the statewide vote but also a majority of the votes in each congressional district in order to pass.

If such a standard had been in place last year, an abortion-rights amendment to the state constitution would have failed. That measure narrowly passed statewide on the strength of “yes” votes in the Kansas City and St. Louis areas but failed in rural congressional districts.

Lieb writes for the Associated Press.

The two foreign ministers presented their argument in the letter directed at EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas. They contended that the EU should impose carefully planned sanctions on Israeli government ministers and settlers of the West Bank. In addition, they demanded simultaneously new sanctions against the Hamas leadership in Gaza. The letter was dated August 27. It called on the EU to act fast. The ministers emphasized that restrictions should be imposed on those people who will encourage illegal settlement activity. Moreover, they further cautioned that ministers who act against a two-state solution need to be held answerable.

The West Bank, which is left in a state of occupation, has seen Israelis perpetrating recurrent incursions against the Palestinians. Maria Malmer Stenergard, the Swedish Foreign Minister, has been talking about it for months. She has called for sanctions on far-right Israeli cabinet officials since May. A big number of them advocate apparent annexation of Palestinian territory. This was announced by Stenergard on Thursday in Swedish public radio:sanctions need to cause such ministers to face difficulties. Her words emphasize an augmented annoyance of the situation in Europe as Israel continues to advance settlements.

The Dutch standing too has become hard. But action was postponed by internal quibbling. Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp quit last week. He was unable to give national sanctions against Israel through his cabinet. He was recently superseded by Ruben Brekelmans, who co-signed the new letter.

The ministers went further. They insisted on cessation of the commercial part of the EU-Israel association deal. However, free trade in many areas such as agriculture and industry is allowed in this agreement. Falling victim to cutting off this benefit would cost Israel extremely economically. Over the years, opponents have claimed that Israel cannot be provided with preferential trade access as it continues to expand settlements on the occupied territory. Conserving this, the Swedish and Dutch ministers now want to make that argument into policy.

In the letter, the focus is not solely on Israel. The EU foreign services are required to present additional propositions to pressurize Hamas. The organization already managing the Gaza Strip is declared as a terrorist organization by the EU and a few of the Western states.

Nevertheless, the ministers insist there is still a need for further sanctions. They are worried that Hamas continues being an important factor in the struggle. They would like to add an additional stress layer by attacking the political hierarchy of Hamas.

Furthermore, the position adopted by Pakistan is unambiguous. Pakistan identifies with the entire community of states that champion humanity, justice, and long-term peace. The foreign policy has stood firmly behind the Palestinian cause, and the country has made numerous demands for a fair and peaceful resolution of the conflict. It is the country’s position that all countries should respect international law as well as humanitarianism. Besides, to assert this is the moral duty of the world community to act firmly for the innocent civilians that are being killed and starved.

The appeal of Pakistan to the EU to act immediately and in unison is by itself essential. It is said to be essential to this move to prevent constantly recurring atrocities and implement international humanitarian law. Pakistan also sincerely requests the EU to follow the appeal concerted by Sweden and the Netherlands. The era of contemplation is over; the call to act is on.

The timing of the letter is not random. There was an official announcement of famine in Gaza by the United Nations on Friday. The UN accuses Israel of what it terms systematic defiance on the facilitation of aid. The crisis is the result of over 22 months of war that led to considerable loss of civilian lives and the destruction of many properties.

The humanitarian catastrophe has brought the appeal for more forceful steps in Europe. It has been said that assistance cannot be delivered to the needy without pressure on Israel by the politicians. Others think that the strategies of Hamas also extend the suffering.

The problem this time will be brought to the EU foreign ministers on Saturday. Proposals will be debated there by the member states. The extent to which Sweden and the Netherlands will collect support is not certain. There are those governments in the EU that like conservative diplomacy. Others fear that quotas might carve up relationships with Israel or with the United States. Yet momentum is building. Notably, the urgency has been introduced through the famine declaration.

In the EU, Sweden and the Netherlands have frequently been active participants in Middle East debates. Their last move indicates that they are ready to go to greater extremes. Accountability of settlement expansion, in the case of Stenergard, is the question. In the case of Brekelmans, it is the policies of Israel as well as the activities of Hamas.

The way they did things reflects a broader European trend. Greater information is frustrating governments that the peace process is not forthcoming. Settlement expansion is seen by many as the greatest barrier to a two-state solution. It is also claimed by others that diplomacy is compromised by the constant attacks by Hamas.

Despite these cries, the EU has internal cracks. Such nations as Germany and Hungary have always feared sanctioning Israel. France and Spain have assumed more hardline stances, but they are also wary of trade measures. Getting consensus will not come easy.

Nevertheless, the Swedish Akademisk holändsk Bulletin is a telling sign. The pressure on Israel no longer remains a fringe concept in the EU. It is entering into mainstream debate. This is in the wake of United States and Israel negotiations on post-war Gaza. Washington has called on restraint, yet it is on the side of Israel militarily. On the same day, Tel Aviv reported that a complete evacuation of Gaza City is inevitable. These trends make EU decisions more important. The sanctions would become a landmark should they be passed. The Israeli settlement policy has received many criticisms from the EU, but very few measures have been taken by the body. The most powerful thing that could be done, however, is to suspend the trade deal.

The Netherlands and Sweden have gone bold. Their open letter to Kaja Kallas asks to target sanctions against violent settlers and monopolist Israeli ministers. It also requires additional actions against the political leadership of Hamas. Also, they desire that the EU-Israel trade agreement be suspended.

The proposals come at a time when Gaza struggles with famine and when the war will turn 23 months old. The EU foreign ministers meeting in Copenhagen will debate the issue. The result may remodel the policy of Europe in the Middle East. Somehow the sanctions may pass or not pass, but one thing is evident. Increasing pressure is within the EU. The humanitarian crisis and the continuing conflict are moving governments to action. With the strikes by Sweden and the Netherlands, the issue of sanctions now rests squarely on the European stage.

The cancellation is Trump’s latest move against renewable energy, which the US president has dismissed a ‘scam’.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has moved to cancel $679m in federal funding for offshore wind projects, in its latest salvo against renewable energy.

The move on Friday is set to affect 12 offshore projects, including a $427m project in California, as Trump pushes to deregulate and re-prioritise fossil fuels.

In a statement, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the funding was a waste of money “that could otherwise go towards revitalising America’s maritime industry”.

“Thanks to President Trump, we are prioritising real infrastructure improvements over fantasy wind projects that cost much and offer little,” he said.

The funding had been awarded under the administration of former President Joe Biden as part of a wider pivot towards green energy.

Among the cancellations was funding for The Humboldt Bay project, which was meant to be the first offshore wind terminal on the Pacific coast.

A spokesperson for California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has emerged as a leading state opponent to Trump, criticised the action as an example of the administration “assaulting clean energy and infrastructure projects – hurting business and killing jobs in rural areas, and ceding our economic future to China”.

The cuts include a $47m grant for an offshore wind logistics and manufacturing hub near the Port of Baltimore in Maryland, as well as $48m awarded in 2022 for an offshore wind terminal project near New York’s Staten Island.

Also cut was $33m for a port project in Salem, Massachusetts, to redevelop a vacant industrial facility for offshore wind projects.

In a statement, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey said cancelling the Salem grant will cost 800 construction workers their jobs.

“The real waste here is the Trump administration cancelling tens of millions of dollars for a project that is already under way to increase our energy supply,” she said.

The latest trimming comes after the Trump administration abruptly halted construction of a nearly complete wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut. The Department of the Interior said the move was necessary to address national security concerns, without providing further details.

In early August, the Interior Department also cancelled a major wind farm in Idaho, which had been approved in the final days of Biden’s presidency.

Multiple federal agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Energy and Commerce, said they are reviewing offshore wind farms approved by the Biden administration along the Atlantic coast.

Trump has regularly lashed out at green energy, and particularly wind power, calling it an ugly and expensive form of energy that “smart” countries do not use.

Yet, foreign allies and rivals alike have increasingly embraced renewable energy in an effort to slow the ravages of climate change. China, for instance, has invested heavily in solar and wind energy and has become a leading source for wind turbine parts.

Critics have said Trump’s approach will set the US back behind its competitors.

Last week, as US electricity prices rose at more than twice the rate of inflation, Trump falsely blamed renewable power for the skyrocketing prices, calling the industry a “scam”.

On Tuesday, he pledged not to move forward with any wind power projects.

“We’re not allowing any windmills to go up unless there’s a legal situation where somebody committed to it a long time ago,” Trump said at a cabinet meeting.

CHELSEA outcast Christopher Nkunku is set to fly to Italy tonight to tie up a £38m move to AC Milan.

Nkunku seemed poised to join Bayern Munich on loan as the Blues struggled to find clubs willing to pay the asking price for the France international.

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But things moved fast when Milan turned their previous interest into a concrete bid.

And Nkunku’s impending move should accelerate Chelsea’s pursuit of Alejandro Garnacho and Xavi Simons.

It is understood that Milan will pay a guaranteed sum of between £33m and £34m for Nkunku, with the rest of the total fee relying on performance.

That would represent a break even for the Blues on the Frenchman, who was signed for £56m two years ago and so is currently worth about £35m on the club’s books.

Nevertheless the Nkunku transfer would be another coup for Chelsea’s recruitment team, perhaps the biggest in a summer that has already seen them agree incoming and outgoing deals worth HALF A BILLION pounds.

In fact, the £38m for Nkunku would put the Blues into profit – albeit temporarily before they decide whether to meet RB Leipzig’s £60m asking price for Simons and the £50m Manchester United say they want for Garnacho.

The Frenchman arrived from Leipzig with a big reputation but was seriously injured in pre-season.

His Chelsea career never got going, although he did contribute five goals in the Conference League campaign that ended with the Blues lifting the trophy last season.

Nkunku, unlike other players who were out of Enzo Maresca’s first-team plans, did also travel to the USA for the Club World Cup and scored once in six appearances.

But he and Nicolas Jackson were left out of the Chelsea squad for the first two Premier League matches of the season as the club tried to offload them.

As SunSport revealed, the Blues’ activity in this transfer window will enable them to meet both Premier League financial rules and the terms of their Uefa punishment.

By balancing the big-money arrivals of players like Joao Pedro and Jamie Gittens with successful sales of Noni Madueke and now Nkunku, they have revamped Maresca’s squad without putting themselves in danger of further penalties.

 Tariffs imposed by the Trump Administration on Southeast Asian nations—effective August 7, 2025—are likely to have a significant impact on the economies of the region. The second-quarter growth figures of Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam would have brought some relief for all these countries. For long, ASEAN countries have benefited immensely from globalization and reasonable global geopolitical stability—especially stable ties between China and the US—and in recent years even from the China+1 policy of several companies—especially western ones—which sought to reduce their dependence upon China.

In the current economic and geopolitical situation, however, the ASEAN region faces multiple challenges due to the global turbulence, and countries in the region are devising tools to deal with the economic uncertainty.

Apart from diversifying economic relations, countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam are all focusing heavily on domestic spending. While Vietnam is focusing on infrastructure, Indonesia, under the leadership of Prabowo Subianto, is focusing heavily on welfare schemes, which include an ambitious free nutritious meal program, setting up of rural cooperatives, free health check-ups, and the construction of three million homes. During his first state of the nation address, the Indonesian president said:

‘Our goal of independence is to be free from poverty, free from hunger, and free from suffering.’

For 2026, Indonesia is likely to raise public spending to $233.92 billion. The free meal program will receive $20.7 billion. Prabowo’s ambitious plan to develop 80,000 rural cooperatives is also likely to incur massive public expenditures.

Focus on welfare and the impact of infrastructure projects in Indonesia.

In the case of Indonesia, the spending on welfare schemes has also resulted in lesser allocation towards Nusantara—the new administrative capital proposed by Prabowo’s predecessor, Joko Widodo, referred to as Jokowi. The reason for setting up a new capital was infrastructural and logistical problems in the current Indonesian capital—Jakarta. Nusantara, located in the East Kalimantan region of Indonesia, was chosen due to its geographical location and the fact that it may help in addressing disparities between the eastern and western parts of the country. While Jokowi had committed over $5 billion for the development of Nusantara, between 2022 and 2024, his successor has committed a little more than half the amount for the period between 2025 and 2029.

Unlike Jokowi, who focused heavily on the infrastructure sector, Prabowo Subianto is focused more on welfare. This is a major departure in terms of economic policy. Lesser focus on Nusantara could have several implications. First, according to many observers, it could send the wrong message to investors. Second, it may have domestic political ramifications. The Nusantara project was a brainchild of Jokowi, and it remains to be seen how the former president views the slowing down of the project.

In conclusion, ASEAN countries are being forced to explore new economic approaches and focus more on spending. As mentioned earlier, some ASEAN countries like Vietnam are focusing heavily on infrastructure, while Indonesia is expanding welfare programs. While focusing on the same is important, it remains to be seen what approach the current dispensation adopts vis-à-vis the Nusantara project, which is very important in terms of messaging to investors. It also remains to be seen whether the slowing down of the project will have any impact on Indonesia’s domestic politics.

People in L.A. and New York better get ready for a sea of ESPN red on their morning and evening commutes.

Walt Disney Co.’s is backing the Thursday launch of its sports media unit’s direct-to-consumer streaming app with a major advertising campaign aimed at captive audiences in their cars and on the railway tracks.

The aggressive four-week push is aimed at telling consumers that ESPN — long one of the pillars of the cable television business — will be available for the first time without a pay TV subscription.

The service, a major initiative since ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro took over the Disney unit in 2018, is a response to the growing number of consumers who are bypassing cable and satellite for streaming video platforms. The trend has decreased the number of pay TV homes receiving ESPN, which is a major source of revenue for the company.

ESPN ad on a Cadillac SUV used for Lyft.

(ESPN)

Consumers can subscribe to the new ESPN streaming app for $29.99 a month. Households already paying to receive ESPN channels through cable or satellite can sign up at no additional cost, enabling up to five people to stream the service on mobile devices and internet-connected TV sets.

“We designed our campaign exactly as we designed our product, which is to serve sports fans anytime, anywhere,” Jo Fox, executive vice president of marketing for ESPN, said in a recent interview. “So we want to make sure we are showing up in as many places as possible.”

The advertising campaign that starts Thursday will feature Lyft-operated Cadillac SUVs wrapped in the company logo and the promotional campaign’s tagline “All of ESPN. All in One Place.”

The vehicles will be concentrated in high-traffic areas near sporting events in Los Angeles and New York, where the U.S. Open tennis tournament will soon begin. The ESPN brand name and logo will also appear on the Lyft app and maps.

Mass transit users won’t be left out, as ESPN will take over the E Line of the New York City subway that travels from the World Trade Center to Queens. The exterior of the train cars will be covered with logos while more specific ad messages will appear on the inside.

The public address announcements at the Spring Street subway station — located near Disney’s downtown Manhattan headquarters — will be delivered by ESPN’s voluble $20-million-a-year man Stephen A. Smith, the co-host of “First Take.”

Signage will also take over electronic screens in New York’s Moynihan Train Hall and Port Authority Bus Terminal and billboards along L.A.’s Sunset Boulevard and adjacent to SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.

ESPN’s campaign will go beyond the major media centers on the coasts. The streaming service will be featured on TV screens in the home entertainment sections in 4,000 Walmart stores across the country.

ESPN also has a deal with Samsung, which will offer free yearlong subscriptions to the streaming service to customers who purchase a QLED 4K TV at Best Buy or Samsung.com. Best Buy stores will feature the ESPN app in stores as well during the promotion.

ESPN has already been touting its streaming service on air and in paid TV media buys with commercials featuring actor and WWE star John Cena. Cena will soon be an ESPN fixture as the streaming service becomes the new home of major WWE events such as WrestleMania and Royal Rumble, starting in 2026.

The ESPN app will include a number of features that will complement the live sports offerings. Fans will be able to create their own personalized “SportsCenter,” which will use artificial intelligence to provide a short personalized highlight program geared to the user’s favorite teams and events.

NBC Sports pioneered the customized highlight show on its Peacock streaming platform during the 2024 Summer Olympics, using the voice of Al Michaels. The voices of ESPN “SportsCenter” hosts will be used on “SportsCenter for You.”

The app will also offer stats, betting, commerce and fantasy sports information alongside the live game coverage shown on ESPN channels.

SACRAMENTO — California’s push to redraw the state’s congressional districts to favor Democrats faced early opposition Tuesday during legislative hearings, a preview of the obstacles ahead for Gov. Gavin Newsom and his allies as they try to convince voters to back the effort.

California Democrats entered the redistricting fray after Republicans in Texas moved to reconfigure their political districts to increase by five the number of GOP members of Congress after the 2026 midterm elections, a move that could sway the outcome of the 2026 midterm elections.

The proposed map of new districts in California that could go before voters in November could cost as many as five Golden State Republicans their seats in Congress.

In Sacramento, Republicans criticized Democrats for trying to scrap the independent redistricting process approved by voters in 2010, a change designed to remove self-serving politics and partisan game-playing. GOP lawmakers argued that the public and legislators had little time to review the maps of the proposed congressional districts and questioned who crafted the new districts and bankrolled the effort.

In an attempt to slow down the push by Democrats, California Republicans filed an emergency petition at the California Supreme Court, arguing that Democrats violated the state Constitution by rushing the bills through the legislature.

The state Constitution requires lawmakers to introduce non-budget bills 30 days before they are voted on, unless the Legislature waives that rule by a three-fourths majority vote. The bills were introduced Monday through a common process known as “gut and amend,” where lawmakers strip out the language from an older pending bill and replace it with a new proposal.

The lawsuit said that without the Supreme Court’s intervention, the state could enact “significant new legislation that the public has only seen for, at most, a few days,” according to the lawsuit filed by GOP state Sens. Tony Strickland of Huntington Beach and Suzette Martinez Valladares of Acton and Assemblymembers Tri Ta of Westminster and Kathryn Sanchez of Trabuco Canyon.

Democrats bristled at the questions about their actions, including grilling by reporters and Republicans about who had drawn the proposed congressional districts that the party wants to put before voters.

“When I go to a restaurant, I don’t need to meet the chef,” said Assembly Elections Committee chair Gail Pellerin (D-Santa Cruz).

Democrats unveiled their campaign to suspend the independent redistricting commission’s work Thursday, proposed maps of the redrawn districts were submitted to state legislative leaders Friday, and the three bills were introduced in the legislature Monday.

If passed by a two-thirds vote in both bodies of the legislature and signed by Newsom this week, as expected, the measure will be on the ballot on Nov. 4.

On Tuesday, lawmakers listened to hours of testimony and debate, frequently engaging in testy exchanges.

After heated arguing and interrupting during an Assembly Elections Committee hearing, Pellerin admonished Assemblymembers Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park) and David Tangipa (R-Clovis).

“I would like you both to give me a little time and respect,” Pellerin said near the end of a hearing that lasted about five hours.

Tangipa and the committee’s vice chair, Assemblywoman Alexandra Macedo (R-Tulare), repeatedly questioned witnesses about issues that the GOP is likely to continue to raise: the speed with which the legislation is being pushed through, the cost of the special election, the limited opportunity for public comment on the maps, who drew the proposed new districts and who is funding the effort.

Tangipa voiced concerns that legislators had too little time to review the legislation.

“That’s insanity, and that’s heartbreaking to the rest of Californians,” Tangipa said. “How can you say you actually care about the people of California?

Berman dismissed the criticism, saying the bill was five pages long.

In a Senate elections committee hearing, State Sen. Steve Choi (R-Irvine), the only Republican on the panel, repeatedly pressed Democrats about how the maps had been drawn before they were presented.

Tom Willis, Newsom’s campaign counsel who appeared as a witness to support the redistricting bills, said the map was “publicly submitted, and then the legislature reviewed it carefully and made sure that it was legally compliant.”

But, Choi asked, who drew the maps in the first place? Willis said he couldn’t answer, because he “wasn’t a part of that process.”

In response to questions about why California should change their independent redistricting ethos to respond to potential moves by Texas, state Sen. Majority Leader Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach) was blunt.

“This is a partisan gerrymander,” she said, to counter the impacts of Trump administration policy decisions, from healthcare cuts to immigration raids, that are disproportionately impacting Californians. “That’s what we’re talking about here.”

Her comments prompted a GOP operative who is aiding the opposition campaign to the ballot measure to say, “It made me salivate.”

California Common Cause, an ardent supporter of independent redistricting, initially signaled openness to revisiting the state’s independent redistricting rules because they would not “call for unilateral political disarmament in the face of authoritarianism.”

But on Tuesday, the group announced its opposition to a state Senate bill.

“it would create significant rollbacks in voter protections,” the group said in a statement, arguing that the legislation would result in reduced in-person voting, less opportunities for underrepresented communities to cast ballots and dampens opportunities for public input. “These changes to the Elections Code … would hinder full voter participation, with likely disproportionate harm falling to already underrepresented Californians.”

By hosting an unprecedented short-notice summit with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and key European leaders on Monday, President Trump significantly raised the prospects for ending Russia’s three-and-a-half-year-long war against Ukraine. The vibe at the opening was affable and positive. The participants genuinely looked determined to work out compromises that only a few weeks ago appeared illusory. It was a good sign for long-term Euro-Atlantic security cooperation in the face of challenges that, in Trump’s words, we have not faced since World War II. Toward the end, Trump’s call to Moscow brought a follow-up U.S.-Ukraine-Russia summit within reach.

But the rising expectations also reveal formidable obstacles on the path to peace. As the world’s leaders were heading to Washington, Putin’s forces unleashed 182 infantry assaults, 152 massive glide bombs, more than 5,100 artillery rounds and 5,000 kamikaze drones on Ukraine’s defenses and 140 long-range drones and four Iskander ballistic missiles on Ukraine’s cities. The attacks claimed at least 10 civilian lives, including a small child. This is how Russia attacks Ukraine daily, signaling disrespect for Trump’s diplomacy.

The Monday summit also revealed that Putin’s ostensible concession at the Alaska summit to agree to international security guarantees for Ukraine is a poisoned chalice. On the surface, it seemed like a breakthrough toward compromise. The White House summit participants jumped on it and put the guarantees at the center of discussions.

And yet there has been no agreement, and the world has more questions than answers. How could the Ukrainian armed forces be strengthened to deter Russia? Who would pay? How could Russia be prevented from rebuilding its Black Sea Fleet and blocking Ukrainian grain exports? What troop deployments would be needed? Who would put boots on the ground in Ukraine? What kind of guarantees should match what kind of territorial concessions?

Such questions are fraught with complex debates. Between the U.S. and Europe. Within Europe. Within the Trump administration. Within Ukraine. And all of that even before having to negotiate the issue with the Kremlin. The net outcome of the past week’s diplomatic huddles will be Putin buying time for his aggression as Washington abstains from sanctions hoping for peace.

Disingenuously, in exchange for this poisoned chalice of a concession, Putin demanded that Ukraine should cede not only lands currently under Russia’s illegal military occupation but also a large piece of the Donetsk province still under Kyiv’s control. That area is home to 300,000 people and is a major defense stronghold. Controlling it would give Russia a springboard to deeper attacks targeting big cities and threatening to bring Ukraine to its knees.

Putin’s offer also threatens to tear apart Ukraine’s society. In my tracking poll with Ukraine’s Academy of Sciences Institute of Sociology completed in early August, close to half of 567 respondents want Ukraine to reassert control over all of its internationally recognized territories, including the Crimean peninsula illegally annexed in 2014. Only 20% would be content with freezing the conflict along the current front lines. The option of ceding territories to Russia still under Kyiv control is so outrageous that it was not included in the survey. Eighty percent of Ukrainians continue to have faith in Ukraine’s victory and to see democracy and free speech — core values Putin would take away — as vital for Ukraine’s future.

Getting Ukrainian society right is important for Trump’s peace effort to succeed. Discounting Ukrainians’ commitment to freedom and independence has a lot to do with where we are now. Putin launched the all-out invasion in February 2022 expecting Ukrainians to embrace Russian rule. Then-President Biden assessed that Ukrainians would fold quickly and delayed major military assistance to Kyiv.

Misjudging Ukrainians now would most likely result in a rejection of peace proposals and possibly a political crisis there, inviting more aggression from Moscow while empowering more dogged resistance to the invasion, with a long, bloody war grinding on.

Thankfully, Trump has the capacity to keep the peace process on track. First, he can amplify two critically important messages he articulated at the Monday summit: U.S. willingness to back up Ukraine’s security guarantees and to continue to sell weapons to Ukraine if no peace deal is reached. Second, he can use his superb skills at strategic ambiguity and pivot back to threats of leveraging our submarine power and of imposing secondary sanctions on countries trading with Russia. Third, he can drop a hint he’d back up the Senate’s bipartisan Supporting Ukraine Act of 2025, which would provide military assistance to Ukraine over two years from confiscated Russian assets, the U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal proceeds and investment in America’s military modernization.

The Monday summit makes the urgency of these and similar moves glaringly clear.

Mikhail Alexseev, a professor of international relations at San Diego State University, is the author of “Without Warning: Threat Assessment, Intelligence, and Global Struggle” and principal investigator of the multiyear “War, Democracy and Society” survey in Ukraine.

As diplomatic efforts to end the grinding war in Ukraine accelerate in Washington, there has been no let-up in the fighting as Russia launched 270 drones and 10 missiles in an overnight attack on the country, the Ukrainian air force said.

Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said Russia had targeted energy facilities in the central Poltava region, home to Ukraine’s only oil refinery, causing big fires on Tuesday.

The attack was the largest this month, and came a day after United States President Donald Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders at the White House for talks on his peace efforts.

Russia and Ukraine also said they swapped more bodies of their fallen soldiers on Tuesday as part of deals reached during peace talks in Istanbul earlier this year.

“Today, we handed over 1,000 bodies of Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers to the Ukrainian side. They gave us 19,” Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, who led Russia’s delegation during the three rounds of talks facilitated by Türkiye, said on Telegram.

Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War confirmed receiving the bodies of 1,000 of its servicemen, expressing gratitude to the International Committee of the Red Cross for assisting in the swap.

Moscow and Kyiv conducted three rounds of renewed peace talks in Istanbul – on May 16, June 2, and July 23 – which produced major prisoner swaps, but little else besides draft memorandums outlining positions of both sides, that the other wouldn’t accept, for a potential peace deal

Peace efforts reached an advanced stage after last week’s summit between Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska, and then a follow-up between Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders in Washington on Monday.

Major sticking points of the peace talks are said to be potential land swaps and security guarantees for Ukraine.

Ukraine and its European supporters have repeatedly called for a ceasefire while peace talks are held.

Putin has balked at that prospect. With his forces inching forward in Ukraine, he has little incentive to freeze their movement.

Ahead of his meeting with the Russian leader last week, Trump threatened Russia with “severe consequences” if it didn’t accept a ceasefire. Afterward, he dropped that demand and said it was best to focus on a comprehensive peace deal – as Putin has pushed for.

Security guarantees?

To agree to a peace deal with Russia, Ukraine wants assurances that it can deter any future attacks by the Kremlin’s forces. That means, Zelenskyy says, a strong Ukrainian army that is provided with weapons and training by Western partners.

It could potentially also mean offering Ukraine a guarantee resembling NATO’s collective defence mandate Article 5, which stipuilates an attack on one member of the alliance as an attack on all. How that would work is not clear.

Additionally, Kyiv’s European allies are looking to set up a force that could backstop any peace agreement in Ukraine. A  “Coalition of the Willing”,  30 countries, including European nations, Japan and Australia, have signed up to support the initiative, although the role that the US might play in such a force is still to be determined.

European leaders, fearing Moscow’s territorial ambitions won’t stop in Ukraine, are keen to lock America’s military might into the plan.

Trump said he’ll help provide protection but stopped short of committing American boots on the ground to the effort, instead promising US “coordination”.

Russia has repeatedly rejected the idea of such a force, saying that it will not accept NATO troops in Ukraine.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron co-chaired an online meeting Tuesday of the coalition countries. Once officials have discussed proposals in more detail, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said, a virtual meeting will take place with Trump and European leaders.

Zelenskyy and European leaders said that Putin has demanded that Ukraine give up the Donbas, an industrial region in eastern Ukraine comprising Donetsk and Luhansk, that has seen some of the most intense fighting but that Russian forces have failed to capture completely.

Moscow’s forces also occupy Crimea as well as parts of six other regions it annexed– all adding up to about one-fifth of Ukraine. The international community broadly rejects Russian presence in these areas.

Anna Mateveya, a visiting research fellow at Kings College London, says a breakthrough in offering security guarantees to Ukraine is essential to pave the way for territorial swaps.

“Security guarantees was a way to give something to the Europeans … so that they have some kind of meat to chew while Trump is making some real progress with Zelenskyy and Putin on a separate track,” Mateveya told Al Jazeera.

“Putin, apparently, has agreed on some Western security guarantees, and I think that is a breakthrough,” she added.

Meanwhile, Trump said on Tuesday he hoped Putin would move forward on ending the war in Ukraine but conceded that the Kremlin leader may not want to make a deal at all, adding this would create a “rough situation” for Putin.

In an interview with the Fox News “Fox & Friends” programme, Trump said of Putin’s course of action: “We’re going to find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks … It’s possible that he doesn’t want to make a deal,” said Trump.

Russia has made no explicit commitment to a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy, something Trump projected at the talks on Monday. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that Moscow did not reject any formats for discussing the peace process in Ukraine but any meeting of national leaders “must be prepared with utmost thoroughness”.

Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javid, reporting from Moscow, also said that Russia has not ruled out the possibility of a “bilateral or trilateral meeting”, something that was discussed with European leaders and Zelenskyy.

Moscow said the White House is “sincere in its efforts”, Bin Javid said. “It appears … everybody does not want to anger the Trump White House, they all want to play along,” he added.

United States President Donald Trump has announced plans to convene a face-to-face summit between Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his latest bid to end Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

Trump’s proposal on Monday came as he hosted Zelenskyy and top European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, at the White House for high-stakes talks on ending the conflict, which has raged since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Trump said he had “begun arrangements” for the summit after speaking with Putin by phone, and that he would hold a trilateral meeting with his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts following their two-way meeting.

“Again, this was a very good, early step for a War that has been going on for almost four years,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

“Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, are coordinating with Russia and Ukraine.”

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte separately confirmed that Putin had agreed to the bilateral meeting, but did not specify a date or location.

Zelenskyy, who described his meeting with Trump as a “very good conversation,” told reporters that he was “ready” to meet the Russian leader one-on-one.

Moscow did not immediately confirm that it had agreed to a summit, but Russia’s state-run TASS news agency cited presidential aide Yuri Ushakov as saying that Putin and Trump “spoke in favour of continuing direct talks” between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations.

The proposals for a summit, which would be the first meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy since Moscow’s invasion, came as the fraught issue of security guarantees for Ukraine took centre stage during the talks at the White House.

The specifics of what those guarantees would look like remained unclear on Monday.

Asked if the US could send peacekeepers to Ukraine, Trump said that European countries would be the “first line of defence”, but that Washington would provide “a lot of help”.

“We’re going to help them out also, we’re going to be involved,” Trump said.

Trump said on Truth Social later that discussions had focused on which security guarantees would be provided by European countries with “coordination” by the US.

Zelenskyy said that the guarantees would be “unpacked” by Kyiv’s partners and formalised within the next week to 10 days.

While Trump has ruled out NATO membership for Ukraine, his special envoy, Witkoff, said on Sunday that Putin was open to a security guarantee resembling the 32-member alliance’s collective defence mandate.

Under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, an armed attack against any one NATO member nation is considered an attack on all members of the alliance.

Speaking on Fox News after Monday’s talks, Rutte called Washington’s commitment to be involved in guaranteeing Ukraine’s security a “breakthrough”, but said the exact nature of that involvement would be discussed over the coming days.

Rutte said the discussions had not touched on the possibility of deploying US or European troops.

“What we all agree on is that if this war does come to end… it has to be definitive – that Russia will never, ever, ever again try to get a catch a square mile of territory of Ukraine post a peace deal,” Rutte said.

Konstantin Sonin, a Russian exile and Putin critic who is a professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, said that meaningful security guarantees for Kyiv would need to include European troops on the ground.

“This is all ‘unacceptable’ to Putin, so for European leaders, it is the question how to persuade President Trump that without such guarantees, the war, even if it stops now, will start again in the near future,” Sonin told Al Jazeera.

Sonin said that Ukraine had been failed by “written” guarantees for decades, including during Moscow’s 2014 invasion and occupation of Crimea.

“Russia has signed many international treaties recognising Ukraine’s sovereignty and borders – including Putin himself signing one such treaty in 2004 – and still violated all of these treaties, both in 2014 and 2022,” Sonin said.

“This is all to say that the sticking point is not the language in some documents,” he added.

The issue of what territory Kyiv might be asked to give up in a peace deal also remained unclear after the talks at the White House.

Ahead of the meeting, Trump warned that the return to Ukraine of Russian-occupied Crimea would be off the table in any negotiated settlement.

Trump has indicated that a deal to end the war would involve “some swapping, changes in land” between Russia and Ukraine.

Russia controls about one-fifth of Ukraine, according to open-source estimates. Ukraine, which took control of a large swath of Russia’s Kursk region during a surprise counter-offensive last year, is not believed to hold any Russian territory at present.

Speaking on Fox News, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said both Moscow and Kyiv would have to make concessions for a deal.

“Obviously, land or where you draw those lines – where the war stops – is going to be part of that conversation,” Rubio said.

“And it’s not easy, and maybe it’s not even fair, but it’s what it takes in order to bring about an end to a war. And that’s been true in every war.”

Zelenskyy, who has repeatedly ruled out handing over Ukrainian territory to Moscow, said on Monday that land would be an issue for him and Putin to work out between them.

“We will leave the issue of territories between me and Putin,” Zelenskyy told reporters.