Ukraine and its allies are scrambling to respond to President Donald Trump’s apparent shift toward Vladimir Putin’s hard-line position after their summit in Alaska.
A cohort of European leaders announced that they would join Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington on Monday as they seek to navigate America’s new approach to ending the war.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, European Commission President Ursula von de Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced they would be joining Zelenskyy in D.C., perhaps hoping to ensure there is no repeat of his last Oval Office meeting.
Trump signaled Saturday that he was reversing his insistence on a ceasefire and instead pursuing a permanent peace deal — aligning the United States with the Kremlin rather than Kyiv and its European backers.
Trump directly engaged with Zelenskyy and European leaders by phone early Saturday morning about the U.S. taking part in a potential NATO-like security guarantee for Ukraine as part of a deal with Russia, two senior administration officials and three sources familiar with the discussions told NBC News.
“European and American security guarantees were discussed,” one source familiar with the discussions said. “U.S. troops on the ground was not discussed or entertained by [Trump].”
Security guarantees would activate in the scenario that Russia were to invade Ukraine again, the sources said, but the protections would not include NATO membership.
'Meet the Press'
A “full peace deal” between Ukraine and Russia is the best chance to end the conflict, but a temporary ceasefire agreement is “not off the table,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
“Now, whether there needs to be a ceasefire on the way there, well, we’ve advocated for that,” Rubio told NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” “Unfortunately, the Russians, as of now, have not agreed to that.”
Rubio defended the Trump administration’s decision not to impose new sanctions on Russia as previously threatened, despite Putin’s reluctance to move toward a peace deal, saying, “What we’re trying to do right now is end the war.”
“I don’t think new sanctions on Russia are going to force them to accept ceasefire. They’re already under very severe sanctions,” he later added.
The secretary of state also added that Putin is “certainly asking for things that the Ukrainians and others are not willing to be supportive of and that we’re not going to push them to give, and the Ukrainians are asking for things that the Russians are not going to give up on.”
Politics in brief
- Bomb scares: Democrats who fled Texas are grappling with increasing security threats.
- Armed and ready: Some National Guard troops deployed to D.C. will begin carrying firearms, two U.S. officials told NBC News. Republican governors in West Virginia, South Carolina and Ohio also announced they are sending their Guard members to the nation’s capital.
Multiple gunmen sought after shooting at Brooklyn club
Three people were killed and another ten were injured in an overnight shooting involving multiple gunmen at a Brooklyn nightclub, police said.
The shooting took place at the Taste of the City Lounge on Franklin Avenue in the Crown Heights neighborhood, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a news conference. The victims were identified as a 27-year-old male, a 35-year-old male and an 19-year-old male.
“What we know preliminarily is that there was a dispute inside the crowded club that led to the shooting,” Tisch told reporters. “We believe that there were up to four shooters involved in this incident.”
No suspects are in custody, and city officials urged the public to come forward with any information related to the shooting. It is currently believed to be a gang-related incident.
Air Canada suspends plans to restart flights as strike continues
More than 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants walked off the job over pay and scheduling concerns, prompting the Canadian government to step in.
The airline suspended all operations Saturday morning, before Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu directed the Canada Industrial Relations Board to impose binding arbitration, effectively ordering workers to continue their regular duties until an agreement is reached.
But on Sunday, the Canadian Union of Public Employees called the move “blatantly unconstitutional” and said its members “remain on strike.”
“We demand a fair, negotiated contract and to be compensated for all hours worked,” the union said in a statement.
The airline subsequently suspended its plan to resume limited flights, and now expects to restart operations Monday evening.
AI is coming for jobs — just not blue-collar ones, yet
There is no shortage of hype around AI coming for jobs, and while the U.S. labor market has begun to sputter, hard evidence of AI-related job losses is scant. Even software engineers, seen as at particular risk thanks to AI’s ability to generate computer code, so far seem relatively unscathed.
Whether or not AI does end up replacing some jobs, experts predict that skilled trades that include manual labor and expertise are the least vulnerable to modern technology, and the idea has been enough to push some people to reconsider their futures.
For Gen Zers without a degree, blue-collar work has offered a path to financial stability without the burden of student loans; and Gen Z men, regardless of education level, are more likely than women to choose blue-collar careers, according to a survey by Resume Builder.
Those jobs, for now, appear safe. “It’s a very wide misconception that we are on the verge of having humanoid robots basically replace workers. In my mind, that’s a myth,” said Ken Goldberg, president of the Robot Learning Foundation at the University of California, Berkeley. “Progress is being made at a slow pace.”
Notable quote
We the jury find the defendant guilty as to all six counts ... Didn’t I say ‘not’?
Fulton County Judge
A Fulton County judge misspoke while reading a defendant’s verdict in a Georgia courtroom, telling him he was guilty when the jury deemed him not guilty. The judge apologized, then re-read the statement correctly as people in the courtroom laughed and applauded.
In case you missed it
- Terence Stamp, the English actor best known for playing General Zod in 1978’s “Superman” and its sequel, has died at age 87, according to his family.
- Tristan Rogers, who played super spy Robert Scorpio on “General Hospital,” has died at 79.
- Protesters in Israel demanding a hostage deal escalated their campaign Sunday with a one-day nationwide strike that blocked roads and closed businesses.
- Britain’s Prince William and Princess Kate are preparing to move to a new home in a bid to leave “unhappy memories behind” after a challenging period for the family.
- Pakistani authorities on Sunday defended their response to climate-induced flash floods that killed more than 270 people in a single northwestern district.
- Higher wholesale vegetable costs and Texas’ economic slowdown could signal Trump’s immigration policies are hurting industries, experts say.
- For rappers — household names and aspiring stars alike — strip clubs can be more than dens of debauchery, according to a new docuseries on Atlanta’s famed Magic City.
- From the West Coast to Middle America, dessert creators at state fairs are hawking their own confections based on Dubai chocolate.
- As U.S. television series produce fewer and longer episodes, a new genre from China is gaining American fans by going in the opposite direction.
