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    Love in a cold climate: Putin romances Trump in Alaska with talk of rigged elections and a trip to Moscow

    That was the moment he knew it was true love.Donald Trump turned to gaze at Vladimir Putin as the Russian president publicly endorsed his view that, had Trump been president instead of Joe Biden, the war in Ukraine would never have happened.“Today President Trump was saying that if he was president back then, there would be no war, and I’m quite sure that it would indeed be so,” Putin said. “I can confirm that.”Vladimir, you complete me, Trump might have replied. To hell with all those Democrats, democrats, wokesters, fake news reporters and factcheckers. Here is a man who speaks my authoritarian alternative facts language.The damned doubters had been worried about Friday’s big summit at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, a cold war-era airbase under a big sky and picturesque mountains on the outskirts of Anchorage, Alaska.They feared that it might resemble Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Adolf Hitler in Munich 1938, or Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin carving up the world for the great powers at the Yalta Conference in 1945.It was worse than that.View image in fullscreenTrump, 79, purportedly the most powerful man in the world, literally rolled out the red carpet for a Russian dictator indicted for alleged war crimes over the abduction and transfer of thousands of Ukrainian children. Putin’s troops have also been accused of indiscriminate murder, rape and torture on an appalling scale.In more than 100 countries, the 72-year-old would have been arrested the moment he set foot on the tarmac. In America, he was treated to a spontaneous burst of applause from the waiting Trump, who gave him a long, lingering handshake and a ride in “the Beast”, the presidential limousine.Putin could be seen cackling on the back seat, looking like the cat who got the cream. As a former KGB man, did he leave behind a bug or two?Three hours later, the men walked on stage for an anticlimactic 12-minute press conference against a blue backdrop printed with the words “Pursuing peace”. Putin is reportedly 170cm (5.7ft) tall, while Trump is 190cm (6.3ft), yet the Russian seemed be the dominant figure.Curiously, given that the US was hosting, Putin was allowed to speak first, which gave him the opportunity to frame the narrative. More curiously still, the deferential Trump spoke for less time than his counterpart, though he did slip in a compliment: “I’ve always had a fantastic relationship with President Putin – with Vladimir.”The low-energy Trump declined to take any questions from reporters – a rare thing indeed for the attention monster and wizard of “the weave” – and shed little light on the prospect of a ceasefire in Ukraine.Perhaps he wanted to give his old pals at Fox News the exclusive. Having snubbed the world’s media, Trump promptly sat down and spilled the beans – well, a few of them – to host Sean Hannity, a cheerleader who has even spoken at a Trump rally.View image in fullscreenThe president revealed: “Vladimir Putin said something – one of the most interesting things. He said: ‘Your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting … No country has mail-in voting. It’s impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections.’“And he said that to me because we talked about 2020. He said: ‘You won that election by so much and that’s how we got here.’ He said: ‘And if you would have won, we wouldn’t have had a war. You’d have all these millions of people alive now instead of dead. And he said: ‘You lost it because of mail-in voting. It was a rigged election.’”In other words, the leader of one of the world’s oldest democracies was taking advice from a man who won last year’s Russian election with more than 87% of the vote and changed the constitution so he can stay in power until 2036. In this warped retelling of history, the insurrectionists of January 6 were actually trying to stop a war.Evidently Putin knows that whispering Trump’s favourite lies into his ear is the way to his heart. It worked. The Russian leader, visiting the United States for the first time in a decade, got his wish of being welcomed back on the world stage and made to look the equal of the US president.He could also go home reassured that, despite a recent rough patch, and despite Trump’s brief bromance with Elon Musk, he loves you yeah, yeah, yeah.“Next time in Moscow,” he told Trump in English. “Oh, that’s an interesting one,” the US president responded. “I’ll get a little heat on that one, but I could see it possibly happening.”Trump’s humiliation was complete. But all was not lost. At least no one was talking about Jeffrey Epstein or the price of vegetables. More

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    No Ukraine ceasefire but a PR victory for Putin: key takeaways from Trump’s Alaska summit with Russian president

    Donald Trump’s much-hyped summit in Alaska with Vladimir Putin ended on Friday after just a few hours with few details given about what they discussed and no agreement to end the war in Ukraine, despite warm words between the two leaders.Six key takeaways from the meeting:1. The summit produced slim pickings … in other words, no dealAs Donald Trump conceded during his brief press conference with Vladimir Putin, “understanding” and “progress” are oceans apart from an agreement. At the end of a summit more notable for its choreography than its substance – frustrated reporters were not permitted to ask questions – the leaders failed to negotiate even a pause in fighting, let alone a ceasefire.“There’s no deal until there’s a deal,” Trump conceded, while Putin described their talks only as a “reference point” for ending the conflict and, significantly, a potential launchpad for better diplomatic and economic ties between Washington and Moscow.2. This was a PR victory for a dominant PutinPutin may have been the guest at a meeting held on US territory, but the Russian leader gained far more cachet than his host. Putin spoke to reporters first – a break with convention that gave him the opportunity to set the tone of a brief and, at times, quixotic press conference in Anchorage.Clearly mindful of his surroundings, Putin, who had hitched a ride from to the venue in “the beast” – the secure US presidential limousine – reminded the world that the US and Russia were, in fact, geographical neighbours, although he stopped short of mentioning that Alaska had once been a Russian colony.Trump was effusive in his praise for the Russian leader, repeatedly thanking him for his time and later, in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox, awarding a “10” for the Anchorage summit because “it’s good when two big powers get along”.As if to underline his dominant role in proceedings, Putin ended the briefing by suggesting that their next meeting be held in Moscow – an invitation that slightly wrongfooted Trump, who had to admit that it would generate “a little heat” at home. But he did not rule it out.3. Putin is still talking about ‘root causes’ that stand in the way of a breakthroughThat is code for his non-negotiable demand that Russia retain the eastern Ukrainian regions it has captured during the three-and-a-half-year war, as well as other Kremlin “red lines”: no Ukrainian membership of Nato and the European Union, and an end to Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s presidency.In a message to Keir Starmer and other regional leaders who made a public show of support for Zelenskyy on the eve of the summit, Putin warned “European capitals” against “creating obstacles” to peace in Ukraine. “I have said more than once that for Russia, the events in Ukraine are associated with fundamental threats to our national security,” he said.4. Trump appears to have more in common with Putin than with ZelenskyyThe summit was notable for the absence of the man who leads the country whose fate now lies in the hands of Trump and an alleged war criminal. The contrast between the public ambushing of Zelenskyy by Trump and JD Vance in the Oval Office in February and the personal connection – some might even call it warmth – on show in Anchorage was hard to ignore.Kyiv could perhaps take solace in the fact that Trump did not appear to have accepted all of Putin’s demands, but the summit did little to reassure Ukraine that it can, in Zelenskyy’s words, continue to “count on America”.As he ended his comments to the media, Trump, almost as an afterthought, said he would call the Ukrainian leader “very soon”, along with Nato leaders.5. Trump couldn’t resist revisiting domestic political grievancesTrump is not a man to let go of the long list of resentments he harbours towards his political opponents at home; not surprisingly, he used a summit called in an attempt end the bloodiest war in Europe for eight decades as a platform to revisit some of those grievances.Perhaps encouraged by Putin – who revealed he had told Trump he agreed with the US president’s contention that the Ukraine war would not have started had he, and not Joe Biden, been in the White House when Russia began its full-scale invasion in February 2022 – Trump repeatedly referenced “hoax” claims, backed by US intelligence, that Russia had interfered in the 2016 US presidential election.In his interview with Hannity, he also claimed that Putin had told him that the 2020 US presidential election “was rigged” through the widespread use of postal voting.6. The fighting in Ukraine will continueThe Ukraine war raged on even as Trump and Putin sat in a room in front of a screen proclaiming that they were “Pursuing Peace”. As preparations were made for their first face-to-face meeting since 2019, there were no signs that Russian forces were preparing for a possible ceasefire, with reports that small sabotage groups had pierced Ukrainian defences in the eastern Donbas.Zelenskyy also warned that Russia was planning new offensives on three parts of the frontline. On the day of the summit Ukrainian military intelligence claimed that Russia was preparing to conduct tests of a new nuclear-capable, nuclear-powered cruise missile that, if successful, would be used to bolster its negotiating position with the US and European countries.As the two leaders met, most eastern Ukrainian regions were under air raid alerts, while the governors of Russia’s Rostov and Bryansk regions reported that some of their territories were under attack from Ukrainian drones.The continued fighting was proof that Putin had never been interested in negotiating a ceasefire, the Ukrainian opposition lawmaker Oleksiy Honcharenko said on Telegram: “It seems Putin has bought himself more time. No ceasefire or de-escalation has been agreed upon.” More

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    Washington DC and White House agree to scale back Trump ‘takeover’ of city police

    White House officials and attorneys for Washington DC have agreed to scale back the Trump administration’s takeover of the city’s police department.Under an agreement announced early Friday evening, the US capital city’s Metropolitan police department will remain under the control of its chief, Pamela Smith, instead of Terry Cole, the top administrator for the Drug and Enforcement Administration (DEA), according to reports.A revised directive Bondi issued late on Friday referred to Cole instead as her “designee” for purposes of directing the DC mayor “to provide such services of the Metropolitan Police Department as the attorney general deems necessary and appropriate”.Those services, according to Bondi’s two-page order, would include assisting federal immigration enforcement, contrary to DC “sanctuary city” policies constraining metropolitan police department action on immigration.Friday’s pact would also allow the Trump administration to use Metropolitan police department officers for federal purposes in emergencies.It comes after Washington DC sought an emergency restraining order on Friday against Donald Trump’s takeover of its police department, dubbing it a “hostile takeover” of law enforcement in the nation’s capital. US district judge Ana C Reyes had signaled that she would issue a temporary restraining order scaling back the Trump White House’s takeover of DC’s metropolitan police if the administration did not alter the arrangement by Friday evening.Reyes, during oral arguments on Friday, expressed skepticism that the Trump administration has legal authority to run the city’s police force or that Cole could effectively take charge of the department as its chief.“I still do not understand on what basis the president, through the attorney general, through Mr. Cole, can say: ‘You, police department, can’t do anything unless I say you can,’” Reyes told a justice department lawyer.The District of Columbia attorney general, Brian Schwalb, filed a lawsuit on Friday morning, hours after the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, late on Thursday issued an order for the federal government to impose a new police chief on the city’s Metropolitan police department (MPD).Schwalb says the US president and his administration are going beyond legal federal power over the nation’s capital, and he wants a judge to rule that control of the police remains in district hands. The justice department and the White House haven’t commented.“By declaring a hostile takeover of MPD, the Administration is abusing its limited, temporary authority under the Home Rule Act,” the lawsuit says.The Trump administration named Cole as the “emergency police commissioner” over Washington DC – a move that further escalated federal control of the city – but were immediately challenged by local leaders, who then sued.Federalized national guard troops were ordered into the city four days ago as Donald Trump declared a crisis of crime and homelessness there, amid outrage from opponents.Bondi put Cole in charge of the capital’s police department, saying he would assume the “powers and duties vested in the District of Columbia Chief of Police”.She said police department personnel “must receive approval from Commissioner Cole” before issuing any orders. It was not immediately clear where the move left Smith, who works for the city’s mayor, Muriel Bowser.Bowser promptly hit back, saying late on Thursday in a social media post: “In reference to the US Attorney General’s order, there is no statute that conveys the District’s personnel authority to a federal official.”Bowser included a letter from Schwalb to Smith opining that Bondi’s order was “unlawful”and that Smith was “not legally obligated to follow it”.“Members of MPD must continue to follow your orders and not the orders of any official not appointed by the Mayor,” Schwalb wrote in the letter to Smith.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBondi’s directive came hours after Smith directed MPD officers to share information regarding people not in custody – such as someone involved in a traffic stop or checkpoint – with federal agencies including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).But, as a so-called sanctuary city, DC police would still be prevented by local law from providing federal immigration agencies with the personal information of an undocumented person in MPD custody, including their release details, location or photos, and cannot arrest people on the basis of their immigration status or let immigration officials question subjects in police custody.But the justice department said Bondi disagreed with the police chief’s directive because it allowed for continued enforcement of “sanctuary policies”, and the US attorney general said she was rescinding Smith’s order.The DC power struggle is the latest move by the US president and his administration to test the limits of federal authority, relying on obscure statutes and a subjective declaration of a crisis to bolster a hardline approach to crime and immigration.Bondi also sent anti-sanctuary-city letters to the mayors of 32 cities and a handful of county executives across the US, warning that she intends to prosecute political leaders who are not in her view sufficiently supportive of immigration enforcement.Leaders in Democratic-led cities dispute the administration’s characterizations that their cities are overrun with lawlessness, including unhoused people with substance abuse and mental health issues contributing to an increase in homeless and tent encampments.They say that while Washington has grappled with spikes in violence and visible homelessness, the city’s homicide rate also ranks below those of several other major US cities and the capital is not in the throes of the public safety collapse the administration has portrayed.Trump earlier praised Smith’s directive to share information with federal agencies.“That’s a very positive thing. I have heard that just happened,” Trump said of Smith’s order. “That’s a great step. That’s a great step if they’re doing that.”Bowser, walking a tightrope between the Republican White House and the constituency of her largely Democratic city, was out of town on Thursday for a family commitment in Martha’s Vineyard, fetching her child from summer camp, but would be back on Friday, her office said.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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    Trump and Putin begin pivotal summit on Ukraine war in Alaska – live updates

    As Donald Trump hosts Vladimir Putin for talks in Alaska aimed at ending the Russian war on Ukraine, some Ukrainians watching from afar have noticed that the US literally rolled out a red carpet for the Russian president, who is an indicted war criminal charged with kidnapping Ukrainian children from Russian-occupied regions of their country.Mustafa Nayyem, a Ukrainian journalist turned politician, posted an image of US soldiers kneeling to secure the red carpet laid at the foot of Putin’s plane before the Russian president emerged with the caption: “Make Kneeling Great Again”.Nayyem, who helped organize the 2013 protest movement on Maidan, Kyiv’s Independence Square, that toppled Putin’s ally Viktor Yanukovych, was not alone.Olga Rudenko, the editor of the Kyiv Independent, shared the same image with the caption: “This is Putin’s new phone wallpaper. American soldiers kneeling under the big letters reading RUSSIA. To fix the red carpet. For a war criminal.” The Russian presidential jet is emblazoned with the word RUSSIA, written in Cyrillic letters.A Ukrainian soldier, Oleksandr Solonko, wrote: “I feel very sorry for the American military who were forced to roll out the red carpet for the greatest war criminal whose propaganda system has been smearing their country for many years.”The symbolism did not go unnoticed in Russia. Video of the US troops kneeling on the carpet beneath Putin’s plane was posted on Telegram by the Russian news channel Zvezda, or Star, which is owned by the Russian defense ministry. That clip was later shared on X by a German who supports Ukraine and compared Putin to Hitler.As Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin began their summit in Alaska centered on ending Russia’s war on Ukraine, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, delivered an update on the fighting in a social media address from Kyiv.“On the day of negotiations, the Russians are killing as well. And that speaks volumes,” Zelenskyy wrote in a post on X accompanying his video update.He ran through a list of Russian targets. “Sumy – a Russian strike on the central market. Dnipro region – strikes on cities and enterprises. Zaporizhzhia, Kherson region, Donetsk region – deliberate Russian strikes. The war continues, and it is precisely because there is neither an order nor even a signal that Moscow is preparing to end this war,” Ukraine’s president said.“Russia must end the war that it itself started and has been dragging out for years,” he added. “The killings must stop. A meeting of leaders is needed – at the very least, Ukraine, America, and the Russian side – and it is precisely in such a format that effective decisions are possible. Security guarantees are needed. Lasting peace is needed.”The summit between the two leaders and their respective cabinet officials began at 11.32am local time.We’re getting some pictures of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, joined by their respective delegations in a room ahead of their meeting. Behind the leaders is a blue backdrop that had the words “pursuing peace” printed on it.The White House press pool, who are travelling with the president, say that Trump and Putin were sat in place by 11.26am local time, and the press were ushered out of the room by 11.27am.Wearing a dark suit, white shirt and red tie, the US president descended the stairs from Air Force One at 11.08am local time and looked glum as he walked a red carpet.Trump came to a stop and, as Putin approached, applauded the Russian leader, then gave him a warm handshake and friendly tap on the arm. Putin appeared to crack a joke and both men smiled.The men walked together towards a platform bearing the sign: “Alaska 2025” Reporters shouted questions at Putin including, “Will you agree to a ceasefire?” and “Will you stop killing civilians?” Putin appeared to shrug.Putin then joined Trump in the presidential limousine ‘The Beast’ – a rare privilege for allies and adversaries alike – and could be seen laughing.Trump and Putin drove away in the US president’s official car, nicknamed “the Beast”.Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin de-boarded their respective aircrafts, shook hands, and stood on a stage with “ALASKA 2025” emblazoned on the front, as the world’s press captured the moment.Russian state media is reporting that Vladimir Putin will be joined by his foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and advisor Yuri Ushakov for his meeting with Donald Trump. It will now be a three-on-three summit, as the US president will be joined by secretary of state Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff.Russian president Vladimir Putin has landed in Anchorage, according to Russian state media.The president has yet to deplane, but is currently greeting Alaska governor Muke Dunleavy and senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, all Republicans, aboard Air Force One, per the White House.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also says that for the expanded bilateral meeting and lunch, Trump, Rubio, and Witkoff will be joined by treasury secretary Scott Bessent, commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.As we wait for the president to deplane from Air Force One, it’s worth pointing out a nugget that my colleague, Jakub Krupa, reported earlier.Former Obama administration official and former managing editor of Time magazine, Richard Stengel, has objected to reports describing the Alaska summit as “high-stakes”, arguing on social media that it’s “a journalistic cliche” that “plays into Trump’s theatrical framing of the whole artificial made-for-TV ‘event’”.The city of Zaporizhzhia, an industrial hub in south-east Ukraine, is as good a place as any to grasp the stakes of freezing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine along its current frontlines, or of implementing a “land swap for peace” deal as envisioned by Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.Since Russian troops began rolling into Ukraine in February 2022, Zaporizhzhia, with its broad avenues and Stalin-era apartment blocks, has been a 30-minute drive from the frontline. It has been under near-constant attack from missiles and drones. On Sunday, a Russian guided air bomb hit a bus station, wounding 24 people – just another day of suffering in a city that has known many of them.Plenty of people here and in other Ukrainian towns close to the frontline are so weary of the sleepless nights and disrupted lives of the past years that they are ready for Kyiv to sign a peace deal, even an imperfect one, if it means the attacks will stop.But many others have a very different opinion because they know first-hand what it means to give Russia control over Ukrainian territory: arrests, disappearances and the erasure of anything Ukrainian. As Moscow moves swiftly to Russify occupied territory, expelling or arresting active members of society and introducing new media outlets and school curricula heavy on propaganda, a few years of Russian control may make it almost impossible for Ukraine to regain these territories at a later date.About one in five people living in Zaporizhzhia are internally displaced, from places even closer to the frontline or from occupied parts of Ukraine. They are living in Zaporizhzhia until they are able to go home.Read more about the grim reality of ‘land swaps’, and what it would mean for people in Zaporizhzhia. The previously planned sit-down between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will now include the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and special envoy Steve Witkoff, according to the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt.Air Force One has touched down at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson ahead of Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin. Ahead of the Trump-Putin summit, the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, has said that Britain stands with Ukraine on “what will be an important day for the future of Ukraine and Euro-Atlantic security”.Lammy said he had spoken to Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, and, in a post on social media, added: “I reiterated our enduring support and our commitment to work with the US and Ukraine to secure a just and lasting peace.”Greetings from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, a cold war-era military installation on the outskirts of Anchorage, that will play host to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin today.I am among an estimated 700 journalists from all over the world. We were greeted at Anchorage international airport by the sight of a majestic brown bear slain by Governor Mike Dunleavy and displayed as a trophy in a glass case.The media gathered downtown at 5.30am local time today and were bused to the air force base under a big sky with picturesque mountains. The airbase is like a small city with housing, children’s playgrounds, nondescript three-storey lodgings, a church with stained glass windows and great grassy expanses. The temperature is a crisp 50F.The Reuters news agency reported: “The Kremlin press pool was housed in an Alaska Airlines Center, where a semi-open-plan room was subdivided by partitions and some reporters were seen making their own camp-style beds. They were fed for free at a nearby university campus, Russian reporters said.”Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson was crucial to countering the Soviet Union during the cold war. It continues to play a role today, as planes from the base still intercept Russian aircraft that regularly fly into US airspace. Putin’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, arrived in a sweatshirt with “CCCP” – the Russian letters for USSR – across the front.Today’s meeting could prove a win-win for the two leaders. Putin, an alleged war criminal who had been an international pariah, gets to meet the US president on American soil. Trump, for his part, gets to play global statesman in a massive media spectacle where no one is talking about Jeffrey Epstein.The plane transporting Russian government officials has landed in Anchorage, Alaska, according to Flightradar24.Welcome to our coverage of the US president’s summit with Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska. This will be the first meeting with the Kremlin leader of Trump’s second term in office – and his seventh in total.I’m Shrai Popat, and I’ll be bringing you the latest – alongside my colleagues – from today’s event.The summit is set to kick off in just over an hour (3pm ET), at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. To get you up to speed, this is where things stand at the moment:

    Donald Trump has said, repeatedly, over the last few days that his chief aim of today’s meeting is to get a trilateral summit between Putin, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and himself on the books. In his own words, Trump wants this to happen “almost immediately”. He’s also convinced that he’ll be able to tell from the first few minutes of his meeting today whether it will be a success, and would be prepared to walk away “real fast” if he thinks it’s not going well, according to an interview with Fox News.

    Crucially, the president has said he’s not in Alaska to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine, but instead with the goal of “getting Putin to the table”.

    However, Trump has been less clear on what would constitute a success from his sit-down with the Kremlin leader today. Earlier, on Air Force One, the president told reporters that he wants to see a ceasefire “rapidly”. He added: “I don’t know if it’s going to be today, but I’m not going to be happy if it’s not today.”

    The president also repeated his stern words from earlier in the week that Russia could expect “severe consequences” if it fails to show willingness to end the war in Ukraine. “Economically severe. It will be very severe. I’m not doing this for my health, OK, I don’t need it. I’d like to focus on our country, but I’m doing this to save a lot of lives,” the president said.

    For Zelenskyy’s part, he said that Ukraine is “counting on America”. He’s been shut out of talks today, but reiterated his call for “an honest end to the war”, and said he hoped to see “a strong American position” during today’s talks in Alaska.

    When it comes to territory negotiations, Trump has said he’s not interested in deciding on those today without Ukraine present, and Zelenskyy has said categorically that Ukraine could not agree to a ceasefire deal which cedes territory, as Moscow could use this as a springboard to start a future war.

    Trump confirmed to Zelenskyy that he’ll be calling him first after today’s meeting wraps, and he’s set to brief European leaders after that debrief.

    Ahead of the today’s summit, the president posted on Truth Social that he had a “wonderful” call with the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, saying “the purpose of the call was to thank him for the release of 16 prisoners”, with 1,300 under discussion. The Belarussian leader is the country’s only president since it adopted its current constitution. Lukashenko has described himself as Europe’s “last and only dictator”, and is a notable Russian ally. More

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    New Orleans mayor indicted for corruption over alleged bodyguard romance

    The New Orleans mayor, LaToya Cantrell, was indicted by a federal grand jury Friday on corruption charges involving a purported romance with her former bodyguard.Cantrell, 53, thus became the first New Orleans mayor in the city’s 307-year history to be charged by the US government with crimes while still in office.The indictment against Cantrell came after she drew scrutiny for an alleged affair with a now retired New Orleans police officer who had served as her bodyguard. Cantrell and the bodyguard, Jeffrey Vappie, allegedly plotted to foster their personal and romantic relationship while he was clocked in at work and being paid to provide her with protection.As Guardian reporting partner WWL Louisiana reported, Cantrell also allegedly arranged for Vappie to accompany her on at least 14 out-of-state trips, including to Scotland and the United Arab Emirates, claiming concerns about her safety that required protection. The trips cost the New Orleans’ city government more than $70,000, not counting Cantrell’s travel expenses, the charging documents filed on Friday said.The pair were also accused of using a city-owned apartment on the edge of New Orleans’s Jackson Square, in its historic French Quarter neighborhood, to spend time together while Vappie was supposed to be on duty.Cantrell and Vappie, 52, are accused of then seeking to cover up the relationship by using an encrypted messaging program and deleting at least some of the 15,000 messages they exchanged, as well as lying to federal agents, grand jurors, colleagues and the public.When a New Orleans resident took photos of the Cantrell and Vappie dining together and drinking wine, the mayor filed a police report and temporarily obtained a restraining order, he said.Friday’s charges also allege that Vappie “attempted to persuade” New Orleans’s interim police superintendent from December 2022 to October 2023, Michelle Woodfork, to “make it right” and exonerate him as investigators circled.Cantrell then met with Woodfork – in front of Vappie – and told her she would not be offered the long-term superintendent’s post, the indictment contended.Cantrell and Vappie are facing charges of wire fraud, obstruction of justice, conspiracy to commit both of those crimes, false statements and untrue declarations to a grand jury.Vappie had already been charged in July 2024 – shortly after he retired from the New Orleans police – with wire fraud and lying to FBI agents.The allegations against him and Cantrell called to mind the 2018 scandal that cost the Nashville mayor, Megan Barry, her job and centered on an affair with her bodyguard, Robert Forrest. Prosecutors who obtained the 2024 charges against Vappie alleged he researched that case online two years beforehand.Friday’s charges against Cantrell also come after the September 2024 indictment of New Orleans businessman Randy Farrell. Farrell was charged with exchanging gifts with the mayor so she would allegedly fire a municipal employee who was investigating Farrell’s building inspection company.Among the alleged gifts were tickets to a January 2019 New Orleans Saints football game, which was being played with a Super Bowl appearance on the line, a cellphone and lunch at an upscale Ruth’s Chris Steak House in the city.Vappie and Farrell had pleaded not guilty to the charges previously filed against them.While the Donald Trump-led US justice department obtained the indictment against Cantrell about seven months into the Republican’s second presidency, the federal investigation into the mayor began while Joe Biden – her fellow Democrat – was in his second full year in the Oval Office.The timing of Friday’s indictment coincided with the grand jurors being scheduled to wind down their work. Such panels are typically in place for six months, but this one had been extended twice since first convening in February 2024.Cantrell’s lawyer, Eddie Castaing, initially limited his media comments to confirming that a grand jury indictment had been returned against his client. He also told the Associated Press that Cantrell’s name was read aloud by a federal magistrate judge as a defendant.At a press briefing, the acting US attorney in New Orleans, Michael Simpson, accused Cantrell and Vappie of “an incredible betrayal” of the public’s trust in its own government.Cantrell, a native of Compton, California, had been a New Orleans city council member before winning election as its first-ever female mayor in November 2017.She succeeded Mitch Landrieu, who later worked for Biden’s White House as its infrastructure czar.The Cantrell administration’s first four-year term was partly marked by its guiding the city through the Covid-19 pandemic. And, in 2019, New Orleans registered a 47-year low of homicides.Cantrell was re-elected in November 2021, and her second term has been considerably turbulent.The federal investigation began with 2022 subpoenas issued regarding an image consultant she employed. Her husband – Jason, with whom she had a daughter – unexpectedly died in August 2023.And, as the AP noted, her civic profile receded as she locked herself into feuds with a hostile city council while alienating former confidantes as well as supporters. The city council responded by weakening the mayor’s power through voter-approved changes to the municipal governing charter.Cantrell and her remaining allies maintain that, as a Black woman, she has been treated differently from her male predecessors.Simpson on Friday denied that race or gender factored into the investigation against Cantrell.Cantrell was term-limited from seeking another stint as mayor and is due to leave office in January. Several candidates have signed up to run to replace her in a primary election set for October.Only one other person who has served as New Orleans mayor has been charged with federal crimes: Ray Nagin.Nagin was the New Orleans mayor when the failure of federal levees there during Hurricane Katrina on 29 August 2005 destroyed the city and caused about 1,400 deaths. He was convicted in 2014 on charges of bribery, honest services wire fraud, money laundering, filing false tax returns and conspiracy, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.The Associated Press and WWL Louisiana contributed reporting More

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    Trump rolls out red carpet for Putin in Alaska – as Ukraine hopes he won’t roll over

    Donald Trump has given the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, a warm welcome to US soil as they begin a critical summit on the war in Ukraine.Both leaders disembarked their planes at 11.08am local time at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, a cold war-era air force base on the outskirts of Anchorage, Alaska.The friendly, tactile body language that followed offered a stark contrast to Trump’s shakedown of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in the Oval Office in February.Trump and Putin walked down red carpets that had been rolled up to their respective planes and met where the carpets came to a T, with Trump arriving first and clapping as Putin approached.The men shared a warm handshake and what appeared to be some lighthearted banter. Trump gave Putin a friendly tap on the arm. Putin grinned and pointed skyward while their hands were still clasped.The pair walked together towards a platform bearing a sign that read Alaska 2025 as B-2s and F-22s – military aircraft designed to oppose Russia during the cold war – flew over to mark the moment.Trump and Putin stood looking towards the media but did not respond to shouted questions including: “President Putin, will you stop killing civilians?” The Russian president, who is wanted by the international criminal court, appeared to shrug.Putin then joined Trump in the presidential limousine nicknamed “the Beast” – a rare privilege for allies and adversaries alike – and could be seen laughing with glee.The men then sat together in a conference room with their respective delegations, seated to the side in front of a blue backdrop that had the words “Pursuing Peace” printed on it several times. Trump was joined by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and special envoy Steve Witkoff, and Putin by his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov.The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said the previously planned one-on-one meeting between Trump and Putin is now a three-on-three negotiation. That is a shift from a 2018 meeting in Helsinki, when Trump and Putin first met privately just with their interpreters for two hours.The coming hours of discussions could reshape the war in Ukraine and relations between Moscow and Washington. The war has caused heavy losses on both sides and drained resources. Zelenskyy and European leaders are not invited.Critics say that, by bringing Putin on to US soil for the first time in a decade, the president is giving him the legitimacy he craves after he became a global pariah following his invasion of Ukraine in 2022.European allies fear that the notoriously mercurial Trump might sell out Ukraine by essentially freezing the conflict with Russia and recognising – if only informally – Russian control over one-fifth of Ukraine.Trump sought to assuage such concerns as he boarded Air Force One, saying he would let Ukraine decide on any possible territorial swaps. “I’m not here to negotiate for Ukraine, I’m here to get them at a table,” he said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAsked what would make the meeting a success, he told reporters: “I want to see a ceasefire rapidly … I’m not going to be happy if it’s not today … I want the killing to stop.”On his way to Alaska, Trump sat for an interview on Air Force One with Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier. In a clip posted online, he said he thought the meeting would “work out very well – and if it doesn’t, I’m going to head back home real fast.”“I would walk, yeah,” he added, after a follow-up question.Any success is far from assured because Russia and Ukraine remain far apart in their demands for peace. Putin has long resisted any temporary ceasefire, linking it to a halt in eastern arms supplies and a freeze on Ukraine’s mobilisation efforts, which are conditions rejected by Kyiv and its western allies.Trump previously characterised the summit as “really a feel-out meeting”. But he has also warned of “very severe consequences” for Russia if Putin does not agree to end the war.Trump said earlier in the week there was a 25% chance that the summit would fail but also floated the idea that, if the meeting succeeds, he could bring Zelenskyy to Alaska for a subsequent, three-way meeting.European allies also have concerns that Trump could be tempted by economic incentives and potential deals. On Friday, the Reuters news agency reported that the US has had internal discussions on using Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker vessels to support the development of gas and LNG projects in Alaska. More

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    New Mexico Republican candidate gets 80 years for shootings at Democrats’ homes

    A failed political candidate in New Mexico has been sentenced to 80 years in federal prison for his convictions in a series of drive-by shootings at the homes of state and local lawmakers in the aftermath of the 2020 election.A jury convicted former Republican candidate Solomon Peña in March of conspiracy, weapons and other charges in the shootings in December 2022 and January 2023 on the homes of four Democratic officials in Albuquerque, including the current state house speaker.Prosecutors, who had sought a 90-year sentence, said Peña has shown no remorse and had hoped to cause political change by terrorizing people who held contrary views to him into being too afraid to take part in political life.Peña’s lawyers had sought a 60-year sentence, saying their client maintains that he is innocent of the charges. They have said Peña was not involved in the shootings and that prosecutors were relying on the testimony of two men who bear responsibility and accepted plea agreements in exchange for leniency.“Today was a necessary step toward Mr Peña’s continued fight to prove his innocence,” said Nicholas Hart, one of Peña’s attorneys, after Wednesday’s sentence. “He looks forward to the opportunity to appeal, where serious issues about the propriety of this prosecution will be addressed.”The attacks took place as threats and acts of intimidation against election workers and public officials surged across the country after Donald Trump and his allies called into question the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.Prosecutors said Peña resorted to violence in the belief that a “rigged” election had robbed him of victory in his bid to serve in the state legislature.The shootings targeted the homes of officials including two county commissioners after their certification of the 2022 election, in which Peña lost by nearly 50 percentage points. No one was injured, but in one case bullets passed through the bedroom of a state senator’s 10-year-old daughter.Two other men who had acknowledged helping Peña with the attacks had previously pleaded guilty to federal charges and received years-long prison sentences. More

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    ‘It’s not illegal to be homeless’: disquiet as Trump crews clear DC encampments

    For the past eight months, David Harold Pugh has found his “spot” outside the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Library in Washington DC. He keeps all his belongings, including a guitar, tied up together on a two-wheeled buggy.“This is shelter. It’s a safe place where I can put my buggy up against the wall, and it’s up against that beam so nobody can roll it,” said Pugh. “I roll it on its back, and then I sleep alongside of it, so nobody can get it without me waking up.”He’s one of the more than 5,000 people in the city without a permanent place to live and now facing uncertainty about where to find shelter after Donald Trump said homeless people in DC must be moved far from the city.Crews tore down a major encampment near the Kennedy Center on Thursday, with federal law enforcement removing residents and clearing out the remaining encampments across the city overnight. The removal is part of Trump’s federal takeover of the city’s police department and deployment of the national guard across the city.Pugh believes the Trump administration is out of line for blaming crime on unhoused individuals. “It’s not illegal to be homeless,” he said.Despite the widespread encampment closures, Pugh told the Guardian he didn’t have any plans to visit a shelter this week and wanted to stay close to his spot. “If they tell me to roll, I’ll roll and I’ll come back when they leave,” he said.View image in fullscreenIn an encampment across the city, near the interchange of Rock Creek Parkway and Whitehurst Freeway, one homeless individual, who identified himself as G, had already packed up his belongings. He said he had had to bounce around to various locations over the last few weeks.“It’s just going with the punches,” said G. “So you just never get settled. It feels like you [are] on the edge.”G is also just days away from moving off the streets and into permanent housing. He said the only thing he’s missing is a new social security card, which he will have very soon, but until then, he’s not sure where he will go.“What am I supposed to do for six days? Am I supposed to tell the national guard, or whoever, I got six days? Gonna get six days, and I literally have the appointment at the social security [office] on the 20th,” said G.With encampments now closed around DC and just a few days before he can secure stable housing, G said he may consider staying at a shelter.“I know the shelters might be full. I don’t even know where a shelter is, they haven’t gave us any list. No, nothing. They just made us fully aware of possibilities,” he said.According to the DC office of the deputy mayor for health and human services, unhoused residents who want shelter will not be turned away, and the city is prepared to expand capacity as necessary.View image in fullscreenBut if homeless individuals refuse to leave encampments, the Trump administration said their options are limited.During a news briefing earlier this week, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said homeless individuals could face fines or even jail time if they refused to go to a shelter or receive addiction or mental health services.“We’re in the business of making sure people have the information, they have the connection to resources if they choose, but then people are, you know, left up to make their own decisions,” said Kierstin Quinsland, chief program officer at Miriam’s Kitchen, a homeless service provider in DC. “However, it is extremely concerning that people are being threatened with arrest if they are refusing services.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionJesse Rabinowitz of the National Homelessness Law Center said many unhoused people sleep outside in DC and across the nation because rent is too expensive. “Arresting or ticketing people for sleeping outside makes homelessness worse, wastes taxpayer money and simply does not work. The solution to homelessness is housing and supports, not handcuffs and jails,” said Rabinowitz in a written statement.Quinsland said advocates and community partners have mobilized to keep an eye on encampment closures to make sure unhoused individuals are offered support and “treated as respectfully as possible”.She said one of their biggest concerns about these federal police sweeps is losing contact with homeless residents. In many cases, Quinsland said advocates work with members of the city’s unhoused population for weeks, months or longer if they are trying to move them toward permanent housing.“Trust is an issue in homeless outreach, you know. A lot of folks [who] are outside, they decline shelter for a reason, because they don’t trust services,” said Quinsland. “So these relationships that we have with folks are precious, and they are hard fought.”View image in fullscreenAdvocates also warn that these citywide encampment closures may separate homeless individuals from critical support and social services.“If they’re moved somewhere where they don’t know where they can get a meal, they don’t even know how to get back to the neighborhoods that they’re familiar with,” said Quinsland.Ahead of the encampment closures, Quinsland said outreach street teams with Miriam’s Kitchen have been passing inexpensive mobile phones to unhoused residents to help them stay connected.“Making sure that they have our phone numbers, have our business cards with them, to make sure that wherever they may end up, we can remain in contact,” she said.With Trump’s temporary takeover of the DC police department in place for the next few weeks, Quinsland said there had also been discussion about bussing homeless residents to neighboring areas like Montgomery county, Maryland, or parts of Virginia to be “out of sight of Donald Trump”.But that’s just a temporary fix, she said, as homeless service providers need more funding to address the issue.“The long-term answer is, if we have the political will to put money in the city budget for housing, then we can do that,” said Quinsland. “This year, there is zero dollars in the budget for permanent supportive housing vouchers, so that’s not a help.” More