Donald Trump has said he held talks with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, over a negotiated end of the three year Russia-Ukraine war, indicated that Russian negotiators want to meet with US counterparts.

Trump told the New York Post that he had spoken to Putin, remarking that “I better not say” just how many times.

In comments to the outlet on Friday aboard Air Force One, Trump said he believed Putin “does care” about the killing on the battlefield but did not say if the Russian leader had presented any concrete commitments to end the nearly three-year conflict.

Trump revealed that he has a plan to end the war but declined to go into details. “I hope it’s fast. Every day people are dying. This war is so bad in Ukraine. I want to end this damn thing.”

Last month, Trump estimated that approximately 1 million Russian soldiers and 700,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed since the invasion began – an estimate far in excess of numbers that Ukrainian officials or independent analysts have presented.

The Post said the national security adviser, Michael Waltz, joined the president during for the interview.

“Let’s get these meetings going,” Trump said. “They want to meet. Every day people are dying. Young handsome soldiers are being killed. Young men, like my sons. On both sides. All over the battlefield”.

Waltz would not confirm that Trump had spoken with Putin, telling NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday that “there are certainly a lot of sensitive conversations going on” and that senior US diplomats would be in Europe this week “talking through the details of how to end this war and that will mean getting both sides to the table”.

Ending the war, Waltz added, had come up in conversations with India’s prime minister Narendra Modi, China’s president Xi Jinping and leaders across the Middle East. “Everybody is ready to help President Trump end in this war,” Waltz said, and repeated Trump’s comments that he is prepared to tax, tariff and sanction Russia.

“The president is prepared to put all of those issues on the table this week, including the future of US aid to Ukraine. We need to recoup those costs, and that is going to be a partnership with the Ukrainians in terms of their rare earth (materials), their natural resources, their oil and gas, and also buying ours.”

But Waltz reiterated what he said was the Trump administration’s “underlying principle” that the Europeans “have to own this conflict going forward. President Trump is going to end it, and then in terms of security guarantees that is squarely going to be with the Europeans.”

During his presidential campaign, Trump made repeated vows to end the war quickly if he was re-elected, often pointing to the loss of life on the battlefield.

Last month, Trump said “Most people thought this war would last about a week, and now it’s been going on for three years,” and said the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, had expressed interest in a negotiated peace deal.

During the interview on Friday, Trump again expressed sorrow for the loss of life in the war and compared the young men dying to his own sons.

“All those dead people. Young, young, beautiful people. They’re like your kids, two million of them – and for no reason,” Trump told the Post, adding that Putin also “wants to see people stop dying”.

The Kremlin on Sunday declined to confirm or deny the report of the phone call. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS state news agency he was unaware of any such call.

“What can be said about this news: as the administration in Washington unfolds its work, many different communications arise. These communications are conducted through different channels. And of course, amid the multiplicity of these communications, I personally may not know something, be unaware of something. Therefore, in this case, I can neither confirm nor deny it.”

The Kremlin has previously said it is awaiting “signals” on a possible meeting between Trump and Putin. The head of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, Leonid Slutsky, has said that work on preparing contacts between Moscow and Washington “is at an advanced stage”.

The US president also ventured into the current stand-off between Israel and Iran, saying he “would like a deal done with Iran on non-nuclear” and would prefer a negotiated deal to “bombing the hell out of it… They don’t want to die. Nobody wants to die.”

If there was a deal with Iran, he said, “Israel wouldn’t bomb them”. But he declined to go further on any approach to Iran: “In a way, I don’t like telling you what I’m going to tell them. You know, it’s not nice.”

“I could tell what I have to tell them, and I hope they decide that they’re not going to do what they’re currently thinking of doing. And I think they’ll really be happy,” Trump added.

Hamas freed three hostages from Gaza and Israel released 183 prisoners and detainees on Saturday, the fifth exchange under a fragile, three-week-old ceasefire deal.

The gaunt appearance of the three Israeli men shocked the country, sparking anger and dismay that could increase pressure on the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to extend the agreement to a second stage, bringing home the remaining Israeli captives.

The Israeli leader may face a choice between keeping his government or sealing a second stage of the ceasefire, which under a framework plan would see all hostages freed and Israeli forces pulling out of Gaza.

The far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich opposed the ceasefire and has threatened to quit the coalition if the war does not resume, which would probably bring it down.

On Saturday evening he hit out at Israelis who had compared the freed hostages to emaciated victims of Nazi concentration camps, saying it was “grave mistake” that showed “contempt” for the Holocaust.

The three men appeared more frail than 13 Israelis and five Thai citizens who had previously been released.

Smotrich suggested those calling to extend the ceasefire because of fears about the condition of dozens of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza want to “surrender to Hamas”.

Many Palestinian prisoners released to Ramallah hours after the Israelis were freed also looked extremely thin, and seven out of 43 needed hospitalisation, the Palestinian Prisoners Club said.

Rights groups and whistleblowers have described a policy of “institutionalised abuse” in Israeli jails and detention centres. Severely reduced rations have led to prisoners emerging emaciated, in some cases having lost dozens of kilograms.

Some of those released were serving multiple life sentences for violent offences. But also freed on Saturday were 111 detainees from Gaza, arrested after 7 October 2023 and never charged before their release.

Netanyahu, who is in Washington for meetings with Donald Trump and other US allies, has repeatedly indicated that he is prepared to resume the war, insisting that only a “complete” military victory can keep Israel safe.

“We will eliminate Hamas, and we will return our hostages,” he said in a statement celebrating the releases, and attacking the way the hostages were treated.

The Israeli leader has ordered a delegation to Qatar to discuss “technical matters”, but no substantial talks will start until after a security cabinet meeting on Monday, Israeli media reported.

Israel’s hostage coordinator, Brig Gen Gal Hirsch, said he viewed the condition of those freed with great concern.

Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan Zangauker is in Gaza and not due for release under the first stage of the deal, accused Netanyahu of “sitting in a hotel in Washington, trying to sabotage” a deal that would save her son.

“Tell them to shorten the first stage, close [the deal] on the second stage, and this time, bring them all home at once,” she said in a statement quoted by Israeli media.

A Hamas political bureau member, Basem Naim, warned Israel’s “lack of commitment” is putting the Gaza ceasefire in danger of collapse. He told AFP the group did not want to return to war, but was ready to fight if the ceasefire collapsed.

The next round of negotiations was officially started at the beginning of the week, when Netanyahu met Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, but Naim said talks were not yet under way.

Netanyahu has ordered a delegation to Qatar to discuss “technical matters”, but no substantial talks will start until after he returns from Washington for a security cabinet meeting on Monday, Israeli media reported.

A third stage would see the reconstruction of Gaza, but the process has been thrown into turmoil by Trump’s shock suggestion that the US should take over the territory and Palestinians be resettled elsewhere, prompting the UN secretary general to warn of ethnic cleansing.

Israelis were also angered by a Hamas ceremony that saw the frail-looking men forced to make statements on a stage in Gaza before they were taken to waiting buses.

Israel made prisoners due for release watch a film about the destruction of the Gaza Strip in the war, some of those released said, and was criticised last week for releasing prisoners wearing bracelets with pro-Israeli messages.

The Red Cross said it was “increasingly concerned” about the releases, in a statement that urged all parties including mediators “to ensure that future releases are dignified and private”.

Two of the Israeli hostages were emerging from captivity to news of painful losses.
Eli Sharabi, taken hostage from Be’eri kibbutz, was not told during his entire captivity that his wife and daughters had been killed on 7 October 2023, Israeli media reported.

Or Levy, who was abducted from the Nova music festival, suspected his wife was dead, but did not have the news confirmed. He was reunited with his now three-year-old son, who was staying with grandparents on the morning of the attack.

Kurdish officials have warned of an Islamic State resurgence if US foreign aid cuts take effect on Monday, which would cripple essential services for tens of thousands of people detained in tented camps in north-east Syria, including suspected members of IS and their families.

Blumont, a Virginia-based humanitarian aid group responsible for the management of two of Syria’s IS detention camps, al-Hol and al-Roj, was given a stop-work order on 24 January by the US state department. The sudden cessation of services prompted panic in the camps after aid workers failed to turn up for work.

Three days later, Blumont was given a two-week waiver to the aid cuts, which unless extended, will expire on Monday. “We have no idea what will happen tomorrow. It seems as if even the provision of bread will be halted,” said Jihan Hanan, the director of al-Hol camp.

The camp holds the relatives of suspected IS fighters and is mostly populated by women and children. Rights groups have for years warned that detainees are held arbitrarily without charges in inhumane and substandard living conditions.

No charges have been raised against the camp’s population. Despite this, they are unable to leave, with the exception of non-Syrian detainees whose countries agree to take them back.

Though IS no longer holds any territory after the group’s last stand in March 2019, US and Kurdish officials say the group ideology prevails among former members and that camps and detention facilities are a hotbed of extremist ideology.

In the section of the camp where foreign women from at least 40 countries are kept, guards say they are in a constant struggle with women who seek to keep IS alive.

“Even if a normal person enters the camp, they eventually will be psychologically affected. The violent behaviour is really high among the kids and women,” Hanan said, describing incidents of violence against al-Hol’s staff.

Women there have constructed cloth roofs above their tents and walkways to conceal themselves from guards’ view. In once incident, a child as young as six years old waited at the edge of the fenced-off annexe, hurling rocks at passing NGO vehicles with a makeshift sling.

It is unclear what will happen on Monday when the brief waiver given to Blumont, which provides the bulk of services in al-Hol, expires. Camp officials are hoping for an 11th-hour exemption from Donald Trump’s 90-day global aid freeze, but have been given no assurances from the US administration.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, issued a blanket waiver for “life-saving assistance”, for which humanitarian organisations can apply while the administration reviews which US aid projects will continue. The review process has confused US aid officials, diplomats and humanitarian workers worldwide.

When aid was briefly cut off from al-Hol in late January, the camp administration was given no notice. Camp officials had to scramble to secure the most basic of services, as contractors such as Blumont, which normally provided bread and water to the camp, had shuttered their offices. US special forces visited the camp, assuring its director they would help safeguard it in case of any unrest or IS attacks.

“We were able to get bread to the camp by the afternoon. It was 5,000 bags of bread for one day, which was 4bn Syrian lira (£35,000) – the Autonomous Administration [the Kurdish authority of north-east Syria] cannot cover this cost,” Hanan said.

Humanitarian conditions in al-Hol are already abysmal. On Thursday, residents shopping at the camp’s marketplace moved through mud and puddles as cold winter rain flooded the dirt alleyways of the sprawling complex. Young children, many of whom said they could not remember life outside the camp, darted between the shops, their clothing worn and dirty.

“Everything is bad here. We get food aid every two months and we have to sell most of it. Everyone is tired,” said Taysir al-Husseiniya, a 39-year-old Iraqi woman, sitting in a shop whose shelves were sparsely stocked with lightbulbs and other home goods.

Al-Husseiniya said that raising her four children, one of whom was injured by an airstrike during the international campaign against IS, “was extremely difficult” in the camp’s conditions. Her husband was imprisoned by Kurdish authorities in 2019 for being a suspected IS fighter, leaving her to raise her children alone.

Human Rights Watch warned on Friday that the Trump aid cuts were “exacerbating life-threatening conditions, risking further destabilisation of a precarious security situation” in the camps.

The future of the US military presence in north-east Syria has also been called into question as the Trump administration seeks to shrink the US military footprint abroad.

The US maintains military bases across north-east Syria and has trained, equipped and supported Kurdish forces in their fight against IS since the formation of the US-led international coalition to defeat IS was formed in 2014.

The director of the Panorama prison in al-Hasakah, north-east Syria, which houses 5,000 suspected IS fighters, said that a US withdrawal would stretch Kurdish authorities and leave prisons vulnerable to jail breaks.

“If US forces pull out, it will be even worse than 2012. IS sleeper cells in the Syrian desert will emerge and could attack the prison,” the prison director said on Saturday, asking not to be named for fears of being targeted by IS.

In al-Hol, there fears that a security vacuum, along with the sudden withdrawal of much of the camp’s resources, could provide fertile ground for the radical group’s recruitment.

“We will descend into chaos. Maybe the lack of supplies will allow IS sleeper cells to take control of the camp. Maybe there will be attacks on the administration. I can’t say what will happen,” Hanan said.

The Irish boxer John Cooney has died, his promoter Mark Dunlop has announced, a week after he was injured in a fight in Belfast.

A statement on Monday said that the 28-year-old was in intensive care following his defeat to the Welshman Nathan Howells at the Ulster Hall last Saturday. The bout was stopped in the ninth round and Cooney had subsequently undergone surgery after it was discovered he had an intracranial haemorrhage. The bout was his first defence of the Celtic super-featherweight title.

A further statement was posted on Saturday night by Dunlop on behalf of the Cooney family, confirming that the boxer had died after a “week of battling for his life”.

It read: “It is with complete devastation that we have to announce that after a week of battling for his life John Cooney has sadly passed away. Mr and Mrs Cooney and his fiancee Emmaleen would like to thank the staff at Belfast’s Royal Victoria hospital who have worked tirelessly to save John’s life and for everyone who has sent messages of support and prayers.

“He was a much loved son, brother and partner and it will take us all a lifetime to forget how special he was. RIP John ‘the Kid’ Cooney.”

Cooney won the title with a win over Liam Gaynor in Dublin in November 2023 but spent a year out of the ring with a hand injury. He returned in October with a victory over Tampela Maharusi.

A summit of regional leaders has called for an immediate unconditional ceasefire within five days in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, and the president of the DRC, Felix Tshisekedi, joined a summit in Tanzania on Saturday, where African leaders said they were deeply concerned by the crisis.

In the final statement, the summit called for army chiefs from both communities “to meet within five days and provide technical direction on an immediate and unconditional ceasefire”.

It also called for an opening of humanitarian corridors to evacuate the dead and injured.

The Rwanda-backed M23 armed group has rapidly seized swathes of territory in the mineral-rich eastern DRC in an offensive that has left thousands dead and displaced vast numbers.

The group took the strategic city of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, last week and is pushing into neighbouring South Kivu in the latest episode of decades-long turmoil in the region.

On Saturday fighting continued about 40 miles (60km) from South Kivu’s provincial capital, Bakuvu, local and security sources told Agence-France Presse.

Regional leaders gathered for the summit in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam that brought together the eight countries of the East African Community (EAC) and the 16-member Southern African Development Community.

Kagame attended in person, while Tshisekedi joined via video call.

“We call on all parties to actualise the ceasefire, and specifically on the M23 to halt further advancement and the armed forces of DRC to cease all retaliatory measures,” said the Kenyan president, William Ruto, the current chair of the EAC, in opening remarks.

Since the M23 re-emerged in 2021, peace talks have failed and multiple ceasefires have collapsed. Rwanda denies military support for the M23.

But a UN report said last year Rwanda had about 4,000 troops in the DRC and profited from smuggling out of the country vast amounts of gold and coltan – a mineral vital for phones and laptops.

Rwanda has accused the DRC of sheltering the FDLR, an armed group created by ethnic Hutus who massacred Tutsis during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

The summit comes amid reports the M23 is closing in on the town of Kavumu, which hosts an airport critical to supplying Congolese troops.

There have also been reports of panic in the provincial capital Bukavu as local people have boarded up shops and sought to escape.

“The border with Rwanda is open but almost impassable because of the number of people trying to cross. It’s total chaos,” they said.

The UN rights chief, Volker Türk, said: “If nothing is done, the worst may be yet to come for the people of the eastern DRC but also beyond the country’s borders.”

Türk said nearly 3,000 people had been confirmed killed and 2,880 wounded since M23 entered Goma on 26 January, and final tolls were likely to be much higher. He also said his team was “currently verifying multiple allegations of rape, gang-rape and sexual slavery”.

M23 has already installed its own mayor and local authorities in Goma. The group plans to infiltrate the national capital, Kinshasa, situated about 1,000 miles away.

The DRC army, which has a reputation for poor training and corruption, has been forced into multiple retreats. The M23 offensive has raised fears of regional war, given that several countries are engaged in supporting DRC militarily, including South Africa, Burundi and Malawi.

Mexican environmental regulators say they have discovered 30,000 tons of improperly stored material with “hazardous characteristics” in the yard of a Mexican plant that is recycling toxic waste shipped from the US.

The authorities ordered “urgent measures” to get the materials into proper storage as part of inspections they are conducting in response to an investigation from the Guardian and Quinto Elemento Lab, which raised questions about contamination around the plant, located in the Monterrey metro area.

The stories, published on 14 and 15 January, included an analysis of Google Earth imagery that showed what appeared to be thousands of white sacks of the type often used to store bulk quantities of industrial powders piling up on many acres of vacant land inside the plant site.

After the articles were published, regulators from the Mexican federal agency in charge of environmental inspection and enforcement, known by its acronym, Profepa, began an investigation and spent seven days at the Zinc Nacional plant, which recycles hazardous waste from the steel industry to recover zinc. It ordered the shutdown of 15 pieces of equipment that did not have proper authorization.

Authorities said they found improperly stored material – in some cases in broken and leaking bags – in the company’s yard in the open air and in direct contact with the ground. The agency has given the company 15 days to get the material into proper storage.

“The first thing is that they have to prevent it from being in contact with natural soil and they must move it to a space that complies with the regulations,” said Profepa’s head, Mariana Boy, in an interview about the initial findings of the inspection carried out in January.

The Guardian and Quinto Elemento Lab, a Mexican investigative journalism unit, collaborated with toxicologist Martín Soto Jiménez, who conducted sampling in neighboring homes and schools and found high levels of lead, cadmium and arsenic in soil and dust samples taken within 2km from the plant – including inside some homes and schools.

Boy said her agency was trying to determine whether there is contamination from the plant affecting the community.

If necessary, the inspectors could return to the plant to carry out sampling, Boy said.

“We are going to be very thorough in our inspections to have sufficient information and guarantee access to environmental justice in our country,” said Boy in a press release.

Also in a press release, Zinc Nacional said it had been cooperating with officials from the federal agency and has also had visits from state health, labor and environmental agencies, as well as local officials from San Nicolás de los Garza, the municipality where it is located.

“We have collaborated with all of them and we reiterate that we are fully willing to address any observations identified as part of this process,” said the release. “Some of these inspections have resulted in requests for action that are being addressed. As agreed after these visits, the material will be removed from operating yards and covered to minimize the environmental footprint of our activities.”

According to Profepa, Zinc Nacional told its inspectors that the contents of the thousands of sacks in that yard are the company’s finished product: zinc oxide.

Zinc Nacional imports electric arc furnace dust, also known as steel dust, from the US. A byproduct of steel recycling, it is hazardous waste and contains high levels of lead, cadmium and arsenic. These are toxic metals that can cause health problems ranging from brain damage in children to cancer. At its Monterrey-area plant, the company recycles the steel dust to obtain zinc.

Bruce Lanphear, an international expert on the health effects of lead and a professor at Simon Fraser University, said that to understand any possible dangers posed by the plant, independent testing will be needed.

“Did officials test the 30,000 tons of improperly stored material? I hope so,” he said. “Did they conduct extensive sampling of soil and dust in nearby communities and measure it for heavy metals? Those steps are essential to assessing the risk to residents.”

On Friday, two federal legislators called on Mexico’s Congress to press the country’s environmental regulators for a deeper investigation of Zinc Nacional, questioning whether recent actions, which included the shutdown of the 15 pieces of equipment at the plant, are enough.

“They have already audited and put seals [on the plant], but the company is still operating,” said Irais Reyes of the Movimiento Ciudadano party in a video posted on X. Her party is a minority party at the federal level, but holds the governorship where the plant is located in the state of Nuevo León.

In the same post, her colleague, the legislator Laura Ballesteros, questioned whether companies in the United States have a motive to send their waste to Mexico to avoid US regulation.

“This company [Zinc Nacional] releases toxic substances such as lead, cadmium and arsenic into the air, putting health in Nuevo León at serious risk,” she said. “How long will they continue to operate without consequences?”

Oasis fans have said their “dreams have been crushed” after Ticketmaster cancelled their tickets to the band’s reunion tour, accusing them of being bots.

Several people have received an email from the company that said bots were identified making their purchase for Oasis Live ’25 tickets, and urged them to fill out a form to rectify the issue.

One fan who planned to see the band live with three friends at Heaton Park in Manchester on 19 July said she felt “crushed” after finding out her tickets were cancelled.

Leighah Conroy, 24, from Cumbria, said her friend, who does not wish to be named, bought the tickets last August but received an email from Ticketmaster on Friday claiming it was “identified that bots were used to make this purchase”.

Conroy said: “To say that we’re bots is totally out of order for Ticketmaster because we tried all day to get the tickets.

“Our heads have been pretty battered these past 24 hours. I felt sick in the stomach. It’s a band you’ll never experience or see again and it’s been on my bucket list for years. It just feels like my dreams have been completely crushed.”

She said each ticket cost about £150 while a hotel stay cost £200 a person and a further £40 for travel.

Marta Bonnet, a fan from Spain, said she spent more than £3,000 for herself, her husband and two teenage children to see Oasis at Wembley and received the same email on Friday.

She initially thought the email was fake, but after realising it was from Ticketmaster she said she does not intend to buy tickets from the company in the future, despite being a loyal customer.

Bonnet, 48, a lawyer from Tenerife, said: “At first we thought this email was fake or a spam email, but no, it was true.

“We usually use Ticketmaster to buy our tickets … But now, how can I trust this page, which is supposed to be the official page? I really can’t believe what has happened.”

Bonnet managed to buy four premium tickets for just more than £1,000 last August and spent about £2,082 (€2,000) on accommodation and flights, but said it is unlikely she will be refunded for her plane tickets.

A spokesperson from Ticketmaster said: “Anyone who has been contacted and believes a refund was made in error has been sent a form to fill in for the tour’s promoters to review.”

The Competition and Markets Authority launched an investigation into Ticketmaster in September regarding the sale of Oasis tickets, including so-called dynamic pricing.

Ticketmaster said at the time it does not set concert prices and its website states this is down to the “event organiser” who “has priced these tickets according to their market value”.

PA Media contributed to this report

A former Hollyoaks actor has said he is “grieving the tragic loss” of his mother after she was found dead alongside her husband in France.

The bodies of Andrew Searle, a retired fraud investigator, and his wife, Dawn, a project manager, were discovered at about 12.30pm on Thursday at their home in the village of Les Pesquiès, south of Villefranche-de-Rouergue. The couple had moved to south-west France from Scotland about 10 years ago.

Scottish-born actor Callum Kerr, 30, who played PC George Kiss in the Channel 4 soap, shared a statement on Instagram. It said: “At this time, Callum Kerr, Amanda Kerr, Tom Searle & Ella Searle are grieving the tragic loss of their mother and father, Dawn and Andrew Searle. No family member is available for media interviews or comments.

“We kindly request that their privacy be respected during this difficult period. We will provide updates as appropriate.”

Kerr has appeared in Netflix’s Virgin River and has released a number of country songs.

Kerr walked his mother down the aisle when she married Searle at a ceremony in France. On social media, he said: “Not many people can say they walked their own mother down the aisle. What a pleasure. I love you, mum.”

According to local media, Dawn was found outside the property with a serious head injury and jewellery around her. She was reportedly found by a neighbour, who thought she was unconscious and called emergency services.

When police, accompanied by a helicopter, a drone, criminal investigation technicians and a forensic doctor, arrived at the property, they discovered Andrew Searle dead. Police say they have reached no conclusion and are keeping an open mind about the deaths.

“Both died violent deaths, but I cannot establish that either was a homicide. All hypotheses remain open,” the public prosecutor, Nicolas Rigot-Muller, said on Friday. Rigot-Muller told the BBC autopsies will begin on Monday.

A spokesperson for the UK’s Foreign Office said: “We are supporting the family of a British couple who died in France and are liaising with the local authorities.”