The fact that Paul Ingrassia’s nomination got this far illustrates how much antisemitic and hateful rhetoric has been explained away or rewarded by Republicans in power.
Putin and Trump last met in August in Alaska and the US president had said further talks would take place in Budapest
There are "no plans" for US President Donald Trump to meet Russia's Vladimir Putin "in the immediate future", a White House official has stated.
Last Thursday Trump said he and the Russian president would hold talks in Budapest within two weeks to discuss the war in Ukraine.
A preparatory meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov was due to be held this week - but the White House said the two had had a "productive" call and that a meeting was no longer "necessary".
The White House did not share any more details on why the talks had been put on hold.
On Monday Trump embraced the idea of freezing the Ukrainian conflict on the current front line.
"Let it be cut the way it is," he said on Monday, referring to the contested region of the Donbas in eastern Ukraine.
Russia has repeatedly pushed back against freezing the current line of contact.
Moscow was only interested in "long-term, sustainable peace", Lavrov said on Tuesday, implying that freezing the front line would only amount to a temporary ceasefire.
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Israel has received two bodies that Hamas says are two more deceased hostages who had been held in Gaza.
The Israeli military said two coffins were handed over to troops in the Palestinian territory by the Red Cross, which had earlier received them from Hamas.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the coffins - which were escorted by the military - had crossed into Israel and will be taken to be formally identified in Tel Aviv.
Confirmation of their identies would mean that Hamas has transferred 15 out of 28 deceased Israeli hostages under the first phase of a US-brokered ceasefire deal earlier this month. All 20 living hostages were released shortly after the agreement was reached.
Hamas has handed over a Palestinian body in a previous hostage transfers, which it said was accidental due to difficulties locating the bodies.
The IDF urged the Israeli public on Tuesday evening to "act with sensitivity and wait for the official identification, which will first be provided to the families of the hostages".
It also stressed that "Hamas is required to uphold the agreement and take the necessary steps to return all the deceased hostages".
Israeli officials said the families of the hostages will be notified once the bodies are identified.
There has been outrage in Israel that Hamas has not yet returned all the deceased hostages.
The Palestinian group says it is trying to do this but that it faces difficulty finding bodies under rubble of buildings bombed out by the IDF in Gaza.
Under the ceasefire and hostage release agreement, Israel has freed 250 Palestinian prisoners and 1,718 detainees from Gaza, and returned 15 bodies of Palestinians for every Israeli hostage's remains.
The first phase of the agreement has also seen an increase of aid into Gaza, a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces, and a halt in fighting - though deadly violence flared up over the weekend as both sides accused one another of breaching the terms of the deal.
The IDF launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel and took 251 others hostage.
More than 68,000 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are seen by the UN as reliable.
Colombia's former President Alvaro Uribe faced 12 years' house arrest for fraud and bribery
Colombia's former president has had two convictions for fraud and bribery overturned after he was sentenced to 12 years of house arrest.
Alvaro Uribe became the first Colombian leader to be criminally convicted after a trial in August in which a judge handed the 73-year-old the maximum sentence.
The case against him was linked to claims he ordered a lawyer to bribe jailed paramilitaries to discredit claims he had ties to their organisations. Uribe has always maintained his innocence.
The right-wing politician, who was president between 2002 and 2010, is best known for waging an aggressive offensive against left-wing Farc rebels and remains an influential figure in the South American nation.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio previously criticised Uribe's conviction, arguing that his only crime "has been to tirelessly fight and defend his homeland".
Uribe was originally convicted, in part, on testimony from a former paramilitary commander, Luis Carlos Velez, who said he had been paid bribes by the president's lawyer, Diego Cadena.
But the Superior Court in the capital, Bogotá, found that the ex-commander's testimony lacked credibility.
In its 700-page decision overturning the convictions, the court also found that some of the wiretaps used to open a formal investigation into Uribe had been obtained illegally.
The ruling can be appealed by people classed as victims in the case.
Colombia's current and first left-wing President Gustavo Petro denounced the outcome.
He wrote on X: "This is how the history of paramilitary governance in Colombia is covered up, that is, the history of politicians who came to power allied with drug trafficking."
Paramilitary groups emerged in Colombia in the 1980s to fight the Marxist-inspired guerrilla groups that had been battling the state since the 1960s.
Many of the armed groups that developed in the conflict made an income from the cocaine trade. Deadly fighting between them and with the state has produced lasting rivalries for trafficking routes and resources.
Right-wing paramilitary groups have been found responsible for massacres, disappearances and other atrocities.
Some left-wing guerilla outfits have also been found to have been involved in massacres and threats against Colombian citizens, according to Human Rights Watch.
US President Donald Trump wants to advance the second phase of his 20-point Gaza peace plan
US Vice-President JD Vance has arrived in Israel as part of the Trump administration's efforts to strengthen the Gaza ceasefire agreement.
He is expected to push the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to start negotiations on long-term issues for a permanent end to the war with Hamas.
The two special US envoys who helped negotiate the deal, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, also held talks with Netanyahu on Monday.
Their visits come after a flare-up of violence on Sunday that threatened to derail the 12-day-old truce. Israel said a Hamas attack killed two soldiers, triggering Israeli air strikes which killed dozens of Palestinians.
US President Donald Trump insisted on Monday that the ceasefire was still on track but also warned Hamas that it would be "eradicated" if it violated the deal.
Trump is said to have dispatched his deputy and envoys to Israel to keep up the momentum and push for the start of talks on the second critical phase of his 20-point Gaza peace plan.
It would involve setting up an interim government in the Palestinian territory, deploying an international stabilisation force, the withdrawal of Israeli troops, and disarmament of Hamas.
Vance, Witkoff and Kushner are also attempting to ensure the ceasefire deal, which is based on the first phase of the peace plan, does not collapse first.
Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament on Monday that he would discuss "security challenges" and "political opportunities" with Vance during his visit.
He also said Israeli forces had dropped 153 tonnes of bombs on Gaza in response to what he called a "blatant" breach of the ceasefire by Hamas on Sunday.
"One of our hands holds a weapon, the other hand is stretched out for peace," he said. "You make peace with the strong, not the weak. Today Israel is stronger than ever before."
The Israeli military blamed Hamas for an anti-tank missile attack on Sunday that killed two Israeli soldiers in southern Gaza and then carried out dozens of strikes across the territory which hospitals said killed at least 45 Palestinians.
Afterwards, the Israeli military said it was resuming enforcement of the ceasefire, while Hamas said it remained committed to the agreement.
However, four Palestinians were reportedly killed by Israeli fire east of Gaza City on Monday. The Israeli military said its troops fired towards " terrorists" who crossed the agreed-upon ceasefire line in the Shejaiya area.
Later, Trump told reporters at the White House: "We made a deal with Hamas that they're going to be very good. They're going to behave. They're going to be nice."
"If they're not, we're going to go and we're going to eradicate them, if we have to. They'll be eradicated, and they know that," he added.
EPA
There have been repeated flare-ups in violence since the Gaza truce came into force on 10 October
Hamas's chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya, who is in Cairo, meanwhile insisted that his group and other Palestinian factions were committed to the ceasefire deal and "determined to fully implement it until the end".
"What we heard from the mediators and the US president reassures us that the war in Gaza is over," he told Egypt's Al-Qahera News TV .
Hayya also said Hamas was serious about handing over the bodies of all the deceased hostages still in Gaza despite facing what he described as "extreme difficulty" in its efforts to recover them under rubble because of a lack of specialist equipment.
Overnight, Israeli authorities confirmed that Hamas had handed over the body of another deceased Israeli hostage to the Red Cross in Gaza.
The remains were identified as those of Tal Haimi, 41, who the Israeli military said was killed in Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October, which triggered the war.
That means 13 of the 28 hostages' bodies held in Gaza when the ceasefire took effect on 10 October have so far been returned.
Twenty living Israeli hostages were also released last week in exchange for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli jails.
There has been anger in Israel that Hamas has not yet returned all the dead hostages, with the Israeli prime minister's office saying that the group "was required to uphold its commitments".
Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people and took 251 others as hostages.
At least 68,216 have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.
Anya Firestone leading a 2023 tour in the Apollo Gallery at the Louvre Museum, where eight 19th-century baubles were stolen on Sunday in a seven-minute heist that took place in broad daylight.
A federal judge overseeing a case against Representative LaMonica McIver, a New Jersey Democrat, ordered prosecutors to release all relevant footage from a migrant detention facility.
Democratic Maine Senate hopeful Graham Platner expressed regret over getting a tattoo that appears similar to a Nazi symbol nearly two decades ago and plans to have it removed, his latest mea culpa after a week of damning headlines over resurfaced social media posts.
Platner’s campaign sought to front-run opposition research about his tattoo — which resembles a Nazi skull and crossbones — during an appearance on the liberal podcast Pod Save America on Monday, with his campaign sharing a video of him dancing shirtless. Platner said he had no idea of any Nazi link when he got the tattoo.
"It was not until I started hearing from reporters and DC insiders that I realized this tattoo resembled a Nazi symbol,” Platner said in a statement to POLITICO on Tuesday. “I absolutely would not have gone through life having this on my chest if I knew that — and to insinuate that I did is disgusting. I am already planning to get this removed.”
Platner reiterated that he got the tattoo while out drinking with fellow Marines in Croatia, choosing the skull and crossbones off a wall at the tattoo parlor. He said the similarity to Nazi iconography never came up, including when he underwent physical exams mandated by the U.S. Army, which prohibits tattoos of identified hate symbols.
“In the nearly 20 years since, this hasn’t come up,” Platner said. “I enlisted in the Army which involved a full physical that examines tattoos for hate symbols. I also passed a full background check to receive a security clearance to join the Ambassador to Afghanistan’s security detail.”
Platner’s statement that he would get the tattoo removed came after questions were raised, including from a former top campaign staffer, about how he could have been unaware of the tattoo’s connotations.
“Maybe he didn’t know it when he got it, but he got it years ago and he should have had it covered up because he knows damn well what it means,” Platner’s former political director, Genevieve McDonald, wrote on Facebook.
McDonald, a former Democratic state lawmaker, resigned from the campaign last week after revelations about Platner’s numerous controversial posts on Reddit.
Jewish Insider also reported on Tuesday that an acquaintance of Platner recalled him referring to the tattoo as “my Totenkopf,” though POLITICO has not independently verified the reporting.
“Totenkopf” is a German word typically referring to an image of a skull and crossbones. During the Nazi era, one form of the image was adopted by the Nazi police, leading to a lasting association with Nazism and continued use by white supremacists, according to the Anti-Defamation League. Platner’s campaign did not specifically answer whether he had ever used that term.
The tattoo revelation came after Platner apologized last week for a series of offensive Reddit posts, which he said came during a period in his life when he was disillusioned and disconnected from his community following his military service. Those include a 2013 post downplaying sexual assault in the military and a since-deleted 2018 post suggesting violence is necessary to enact social change. In a video last week, Platner, 41, said he regretted the comments and said they did not reflect the life he has now built.
Platner, previously a political unknown, has made a splash in Maine’s Senate race as several Democrats vie to take on Republican Sen. Susan Collins. His candidacy led some Senate Democrats to question whether Gov. Janet Mills should enter the race at all — although she did earlier this month.
One of Platner’s strongest supporters on the Hill was not wavering on him on Tuesday. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who rallied with Platner in Maine last month and has endorsed his campaign, defended the oysterman when asked about the tattoo on Tuesday.
“Look, I understand this whole platoon — I don't know too much about it — got inebriated,” Sanders said. “He went through a dark period. He's not the only one in America who has gone through a dark period. People go through that, he has apologized for the stupid remarks, the hurtful remarks that he made, and I'm confident that he's going to run a great campaign and that he's going to win.”
Her memories of her days as Tanqueray in the gritty New York of the 1960s and ’70s found a new audience in recent years and made her a social media star.
Officials said immigration officers fired shots after the man rammed a law enforcement vehicle. The immigrant and a marshal were wounded in the shooting.
Israel has received two bodies that Hamas says are two more deceased hostages who had been held in Gaza.
The Israeli military said two coffins were handed over to troops in the Palestinian territory by the Red Cross, which had earlier received them from Hamas.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the coffins - which were escorted by the military - had crossed into Israel and will be taken to be formally identified in Tel Aviv.
Confirmation of their identies would mean that Hamas has transferred 15 out of 28 deceased Israeli hostages under the first phase of a US-brokered ceasefire deal earlier this month. All 20 living hostages were released shortly after the agreement was reached.
Hamas has handed over a Palestinian body in a previous hostage transfers, which it said was accidental due to difficulties locating the bodies.
The IDF urged the Israeli public on Tuesday evening to "act with sensitivity and wait for the official identification, which will first be provided to the families of the hostages".
It also stressed that "Hamas is required to uphold the agreement and take the necessary steps to return all the deceased hostages".
Israeli officials said the families of the hostages will be notified once the bodies are identified.
There has been outrage in Israel that Hamas has not yet returned all the deceased hostages.
The Palestinian group says it is trying to do this but that it faces difficulty finding bodies under rubble of buildings bombed out by the IDF in Gaza.
Under the ceasefire and hostage release agreement, Israel has freed 250 Palestinian prisoners and 1,718 detainees from Gaza, and returned 15 bodies of Palestinians for every Israeli hostage's remains.
The first phase of the agreement has also seen an increase of aid into Gaza, a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces, and a halt in fighting - though deadly violence flared up over the weekend as both sides accused one another of breaching the terms of the deal.
The IDF launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel and took 251 others hostage.
More than 68,000 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are seen by the UN as reliable.
Irish police have come under attack at a protest outside a hotel used to house asylum seekers in Dublin.
Footage from the scene at the Citywest Hotel showed a police vehicle on fire.
Broadcaster RTÉ is reporting that several thousand people have gathered outside the hotel.
Ireland's Justice Minister Jim O'Callaghan said there was "no excuse" for the violent scenes.
O'Callaghan said people threw missiles and fireworks at gardaí (Irish police).
"This is unacceptable and will result in a forceful response from the gardai," he said. "Those involved will be brought to justice.
"It is clear to me from talking to colleagues that this violence does not reflect the people of Saggart. They are not the people participating in this criminality, but rather the people sitting at home in fear of it.
"Attacks on gardaí will not be tolerated. Peaceful protest is a cornerstone of our democracy. Violence is not."
The history of the Labour Party oozes out of the valleys of south Wales, perhaps like nowhere else in the UK.
Keir Hardie, that founding figure of the party, was elected to Parliament in Merthyr Tydfil in 1900.
Aneurin Bevan, the founder of the NHS, was elected as the MP for Ebbw Vale in 1929.
Even in recent years, when the so called Red Wall of formerly solid Labour seats in many parts of the north of England and the Midlands crumbled, with the Conservatives as the beneficiary, much of south Wales stuck with Labour.
The Red Wall and plenty more besides have since swung to Labour, but now things seem to be changing in Wales.
Local sentiment, polling and the mood within the parties all suggests something is up, ahead of a by-election to the Welsh Parliament in Caerphilly.
Labour gloom
Talking to folk around town, there is a deep-seated frustration.
A stubborn lack of evidence, as many see it, of things getting better.
And there is a recurring sense of a declining sense of community: a sense that the ties that have long bound the town, the area together, are perhaps continuing to fray.
Something which began with the closure of the coal mines and loss of much heavy industry has continued, some feel, as so many of us retreat behind a phone screen; our increasingly digital lives splintering and atomising us further from each other.
Is that a contributor to political volatility and a dilution of the loyalty people may once have had to particular political parties?
Whatever the contributory factors, Labour are gloomy here, even on their upbeat days.
In Caerphilly, they are the essence of the political establishment: they run the council, they run the Welsh devolved government and they run the UK government as well.
This, if you are the Welsh Labour candidate, can cause issues.
Richard Tunnicliffe, a book publisher by trade, has campaigned in recent weeks to keep some local libraries threatened with closure open.
The thing is, it is the local Labour council which runs the very libraries threatened with being shut. Awkward.
It is a case study in the potential consequences for a party of near political ubiquity for such a long time.
Perhaps little wonder Reform UK and Plaid Cymru are upbeat.
Giants squeezed
Anecdotally, and for what it is worth, they both appear to have considerably more posters dotted around the place than Labour.
And they definitely have broader smiles and a greater spring in their steps.
The big change round here is Reform UK.
As has so often happened in the last six months or so, they are compelling their rivals to react to what they are doing.
The party leader Nigel Farage has been here twice, drawing big crowds.
But the security guard on their campaign office front door reminds you they provoke strong opinions, positive and negative.
Some are incensed with their focus on immigration, in an area with barely any.
Reform's candidate Llŷr Powell argues they are offering something new and are untainted by the blame being heaped on both Labour and the Conservatives.
But they do come with their own Welsh branded baggage.
The party's former leader in Wales, Nathan Gill, has admitted taking bribes to make statements in favour of Russia, of all countries, while he was a member of the European Parliament.
He is expected to be jailed next month.
Powell tells me Gill deserves to face the full force of the law.
Lindsay Whittle, the Plaid candidate, is no stranger to elections.
He has stood in ten general elections and every devolved election for over a quarter of a century – and victory has remained elusive.
He has been a local councillor for nearly 50 years.
Whittle reckons that when it comes to what appears to be a cratering in support for Labour, he has never seen anything like it.
He is buoyant and thinks that in a tight tussle with Reform UK, he can squeak a win.
Plaid are allowing themselves to dream, with some supportive polling evidence right now at least, that they could be running the Welsh government after next May's devolved elections across Wales. They see Reform as their big opponent.
But some of Labour's opponents fret that they may be under pricing what they fear could be a new phenomenon – what one figure described to me as "shy Labour voters."
Some people might be unwilling to admit it, or saying they are undecided, but could they plump for Labour in the end? Let's see.
The Welsh Conservatives, in a part of the world rarely fertile for them, find themselves cropped further out of the picture, again courtesy of Reform.
Grace Wales Bonner, pictured at this year's Met Gala, launched her own fashion label in 2014
British designer Grace Wales Bonner has been named as the new creative director of men's wear for French fashion house Hermès.
The appointment means Wales Bonner, a 35-year-old Londoner, is now the first black woman to lead design at a major fashion house, according to the New York Times.
In a statement, Wales Bonner said she was "deeply honoured to be entrusted with the role".
She replaces Véronique Nichanian, who has been the company's artistic director of men's wear division for 37 years.
Her final collection for the brand will be shown in Paris in January, while Wales Bonner's first collection will launch in 2027.
In her statement, Wales Bonner said: "It is a dream realised to embark on this new chapter, following in a lineage of inspired craftspeople and designers."
She also thanked the company's bosses "for the opportunity to bring my vision to this magical house".
Reporting the news on Tuesday, Vogue said: "While industry insiders were betting on a promotion from within, Hermès went for a renowned talent."
Wales Bonner, who was born in London to an English mother and Jamaican father, founded her own label in 2014, not long after graduating from London's Central Saint Martins College of Art.
According to Vogue, Wales Bonner will continue her namesake brand alongside her new Hermès role.
She dressed F1 driver Lewis Hamilton, musician FKA Twigs, and actor Jeff Goldblum for this year's Met Gala and has made T-shirts with musician Solange Knowles, younger sister of Beyoncé.
Wales Bonner has also curated an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and hosted musical performances at London's Serpentine Galleries.
She has had a long-standing collaboration with Adidas and was made a MBE in 2022 for services to fashion.
Pierre-Alexis Dumas, general artistic director of Hermès, said: "I am really pleased to welcome Grace to the Hermès artistic director family.
"Her take on contemporary fashion, craft and culture will contribute to shaping Hermès men's style, melding the house's heritage with a confident look on the now.
"Grace's appetite and curiosity for artistic practice strongly resonate with Hermès's creative mindset and approach. We are at the start of an enriching mutual dialogue."
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