During a call with Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin apparently rejected a 30-day ceasefire with Ukraine but agreed to halt attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, according to the Kremlin. The White House said that fresh negotiations on ceasefire agreements and a permanent peace would start “immediately” in the Middle East—a “region of potential co-operation” for America and Russia.
Mr Trump fired the two Democratic members of America’s Federal Trade Commission, a regulator. Two of the FTC’s five commissioners are typically members of the party out of power in the White House. A longstanding Supreme Court ruling limits the president’s ability to sack officials leading independent agencies, but the justice department recently said it disagreed with that precedent.
Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, warned that his country’s latest strikes in Gaza were “just the beginning”. In a televised address Mr Netanyahu accused Hamas of rejecting proposals to free more hostages during fragile ceasefire negotiations. He vowed that all future talks would be “conducted only under fire”. At least 400 people were killed in Gaza during Israel’s renewed attacks on Tuesday.
Germany’s Bundestag passed a huge spending package proposed by Friedrich Merz, the probable next chancellor. The measure loosens the “debt brake”, a strict legal limit on federal-government borrowing. It creates a €500bn ($545bn) off-budget fund for infrastructure and exempts from the debt brake defence spending beyond 1% of GDP. The package still requires approval by the upper house of parliament.
The chief justice of America’s Supreme Court criticised Mr Trump’s call to impeach a district judge who tried to pause the deportation of more than 200 people to El Salvador. John Roberts, in a rare public rebuke, said that impeachment was not an “appropriate response” to disagreement over a judge’s decision. The president referred to the judge concerned as a “Radical Left Lunatic”.
Britain’s Labour government said it would introduce large reforms to the benefits system with a view to cutting at least £5bn ($6.5bn) a year from the welfare budget by 2030. The plans include narrowing the eligibility criteria for the main disability benefit. Ministers argue the changes will help people return to the workforce. But the government faces a large rebellion on the issue from Labour MPs.
The last of “the few” has died, at the age of 105. John Hemingway was a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain, fought by the Royal Air Force to stave off an aerial assault by Nazi Germany in 1940. The then prime minister, Sir Winston Churchill, said of the British victory that “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few”.
Figure of the day: Nearly 3m, the number of Britons aged between 16 and 64 who are not working because of poor health. Read the full story.
Donald Trump’s return to the presidency has brought exceptional changes to American politics—with consequences for the rest of the world, too. Read The US in brief, a daily update of the domestic political stories that matter. Sign up here to receive it as a newsletter, each weekday, in your inbox.