News 18/08/25

Donald Trump has confirmed he has spoken to Vladimir Putin as part of fresh efforts to bring an end to the war in Ukraine.

The US President says he is arranging a meeting between the Russian leader and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He also wants to follow that with a trilateral meeting involving all three men.

That is a shift from what had been suggested earlier this evening, when a three-way summit was being presented as the immediate next step.

The UK is on course for one of its hottest summers on record.

The Met Office says persistent warmth and consistently above-average temperatures mean the summer of 2025 could go down as the warmest since records began in 1884. Between June and mid-August, the average UK temperature has been 16.2 degrees Celsius, around one and a half above normal.

Scientist Emily Carlisle says this summer is already one of the warmest ever, and could end up topping the list once the season ends.

Donald Trump’s talks with European and NATO leaders at the White House have now moved behind closed doors.

But reports from Germany suggest the US President briefly interrupted the meeting to make a phone call to Vladimir Putin. According to Bild newspaper, Trump stepped out to contact the Russian leader before returning to continue discussions with his European counterparts.

The President had previously said any call to Putin would take place after the Washington meeting, but this latest development appears to show a change of plan.

A woman accused of supplying Friends star Matthew Perry with the drug that killed him has agreed to plead guilty.

Jasveen Sangha, known as the “Ketamine Queen”, is the fifth and final defendant to reach a plea deal with prosecutors, avoiding a trial set for September. The 42-year-old has admitted to five federal charges, including providing the ketamine that contributed to Perry’s death. The actor, who was 54, was found at his home in October 2023.

He’d been using ketamine to treat depression, a treatment that has become increasingly common.

A tractor driver has been seriously injured after his vehicle crashed off a bridge and fell onto the M20.

Emergency services were called just after 11 this morning to a collision involving a tractor and a lorry on the A227 overbridge near Wrotham. The tractor fell onto the central reservation between junctions two and three of the motorway. The driver was airlifted to King’s College Hospital in London with serious injuries.

Police say the motorway was closed in both directions while recovery work took place.

Hamas has agreed to a ceasefire and hostage deal with Israel, according to a senior official.

Egyptian and Qatari mediators have been leading the latest round of talks aimed at ending the conflict in Gaza. No details of the agreement have been released, and it remains unclear what Hamas has accepted.

The group has responded positively to similar frameworks in the past but often proposed amendments that Israel rejected.

A man has been found guilty of his part in a gangland shooting in east London that left a nine-year-old girl with a bullet lodged in her brain.

Thirty-three-year-old Javon Riley helped the gunman escape after he opened fire outside the Evin Restaurant in Dalston last May. Prosecutors said the attack was ordered by the Tottenham Turks gang against rivals from the Hackney Turks.

Six shots were fired, but the first struck the child as she ate ice cream inside with her family.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has condemned what he called a “demonstrative and cynical” Russian missile strike on a block of flats in Kharkiv overnight.

In a post on X, he accused Moscow of deliberately escalating attacks as peace talks begin in Washington today. He said strikes had also hit Zaporizhzhia, Sumy and Odesa, adding that Vladimir Putin was intent on inflicting “demonstrative killings” to pressure Ukraine and humiliate diplomacy.

Zelensky argued that this underlines why Kyiv needs firm security guarantees, insisting Russia should not be rewarded for its actions.

A man has been released on bail after being arrested on suspicion of racially abusing Bournemouth striker Antoine Semenyo.

The 47-year-old, from Liverpool, has been banned from going within a mile of any football ground while the investigation continues. The incident happened during Friday’s match at Anfield, when Semenyo made a complaint and the referee briefly halted play to speak with both managers.

An anti-discrimination announcement was broadcast to the crowd, and officers later visited the referee’s room at half time.

Three people, including a child, have been taken to hospital after a serious crash in Windsor.

A white Ford Transit Tipper carrying roadwork barriers collided with a black Range Rover Sport on Sheet Street Road on Thursday afternoon. A man in his twenties, a woman in her thirties and a child were all injured.

The woman and the child have since been discharged, while the man remains in hospital.

Firefighters in Clacton-on-Sea have brought under control a large blaze that tore through a building in the early hours of Monday.

Photos from Essex Fire and Rescue show the property completely gutted, with a vehicle outside also destroyed. Residents were forced to evacuate but there are no reports of injuries.

The cause is not yet known and will be investigated once the site is safe.

Donald Trump has increased pressure on Ukraine’s president ahead of key talks in Washington today.

In a social media post this morning, Trump said Volodymyr Zelenskyy could end the war with Russia “almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight.”

The meeting between Trump, Zelenskyy and European leaders follows Friday’s discussions in Alaska between Trump and Vladimir Putin, where no peace deal was reached.

Trump also signalled what to expect from today’s talks, writing: “No getting back Obama given Crimea… and no going into NATO by Ukraine.”

The Cambridge Dictionary has added six thousand new words this year, many inspired by social media slang.

Among the additions are delulu, tradwife, broligarchy and lewk — terms that experts believe will stand the test of time rather than being passing trends.

Other new entries include “mouse jiggler,” a gadget or app used by people working from home to stop their computer going into sleep mode, and climate-related phrases such as “forever chemical.”

The dictionary, published by Cambridge University Press, says it bases new entries on a vast database of real-world English usage across media and everyday life.

Donald Trump has said Volodymyr Zelenskyy could end the war with Russia “almost immediately if he wants to” ahead of key White House talks on Ukraine.

The former president made the remarks in a series of social media posts before his meeting with the Ukrainian leader, who will be joined in Washington by Sir Keir Starmer and other European allies.

Their goal is to ensure Ukraine does not have to concede key regions to Russia as part of any peace deal, following Trump’s summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.

The talks also come after Zelenskyy’s last visit to the White House in February ended in heated exchanges, with the Ukrainian president leaving early and US aid later being suspended.