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Trump Tells Putin to 'Stop Shooting' and Make a Deal

President Donald Trump gestures as he arrives at Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, N.J., Saturday, April 26, 2025, upon returning from a trip to attend the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Donald Trump gestures as he arrives at Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, N.J., Saturday, April 26, 2025, upon returning from a trip to attend the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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Trump Tells Putin to 'Stop Shooting' and Make a Deal

President Donald Trump gestures as he arrives at Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, N.J., Saturday, April 26, 2025, upon returning from a trip to attend the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Donald Trump gestures as he arrives at Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, N.J., Saturday, April 26, 2025, upon returning from a trip to attend the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

US President Donald Trump said Sunday he wanted Russia's Vladimir Putin to "stop shooting" in Ukraine and sign a peace deal, one day after the US leader met Ukraine's president at the Vatican.

Trump, who boasted before his inauguration that he could halt Russia's invasion of Ukraine within one day, has launched a diplomatic offensive since taking office to halt the fighting.

Those efforts have so far failed to yield any results, said AFP.

"Well, I want him to stop shooting, sit down, and sign a deal," Trump said in response to a question on what he wanted from Putin.

Trump was speaking on the tarmac at Morristown airport before boarding Air Force One bound for Washington, having attended the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome on Saturday.

"We have the confines of a deal, I believe, and I want him to sign it," Trump added, likely referring to a US-proposed peace plan for the more-than-three-year-long conflict in Ukraine.

Trump had met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the funeral, where the two leaders spoke face-to-face for the first time since a disastrous televised meeting in the White House in February.

After their brief talk in St Peter's Basilica, Trump cast doubt over whether Putin wanted an end to the war, which has devastated swaths of eastern Ukraine and killed tens of thousands of people.

Trump also said on Sunday that he thought Zelensky was ready to give up Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula captured by Russia in 2014, as part of efforts to agree a peace deal.

"Oh, I think so," said Trump in response to a question on whether he thought Zelensky was ready to "give up" the territory.

Russia, which launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, claimed to have annexed four eastern and southern territories of the war-battered country despite not having full military control over them.

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World

Eight Dead as Tornadoes Surge Across Central US

A tree is left uprooted following a tornado that hit several cities in rural southwest Michigan on March 7, 2026 in Union City, Michigan. (Getty Images/AFP)
A tree is left uprooted following a tornado that hit several cities in rural southwest Michigan on March 7, 2026 in Union City, Michigan. (Getty Images/AFP)
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Eight Dead as Tornadoes Surge Across Central US

A tree is left uprooted following a tornado that hit several cities in rural southwest Michigan on March 7, 2026 in Union City, Michigan. (Getty Images/AFP)
A tree is left uprooted following a tornado that hit several cities in rural southwest Michigan on March 7, 2026 in Union City, Michigan. (Getty Images/AFP)

Tornadoes tore through the central United States in a series of storms that continued into Saturday, leaving eight people dead and at least a dozen others injured, authorities said.

Four people were reported killed in Oklahoma, where the twisters gained strength, and four others died further north in the Midwestern state of Michigan.

The Branch County Sheriff's Office said a tornado touched down near Union City in southern Michigan on Friday, killing three people and injuring 12.

About 50 miles (80 kilometers) west, officials in Cass County said one person was killed and "several injuries" were reported after a tornado hit the area.

"Our thoughts are with those who have lost family, friends, and property during this incident," the Branch County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

Authorities in Cass County said a number of trees had fallen onto roads and buildings, and more than 500 people were reported to be without power.

"Emergency Management personnel will be conducting damage assessments in the affected area as required by the State of Michigan," the local sheriff's office said.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said Friday evening she was activating a state emergency operations center "to coordinate an all-hands-on-deck response to severe weather in southwestern Michigan."

In Oklahoma, the extreme weather led to fourth deaths late Thursday and Friday, and people were waking up Saturday to scenes of destruction and loss in several towns across the state.

"Severe weather struck Major County last night and tragically claimed the lives of a mother and daughter," Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt posted on X.

Okmulgee County Sheriff Eddy Rice said in a statement that two people died in a tornado that hit the town of Beggs on Friday night.

World

US Starts Using UK Bases for ‘Defensive’ Iran Operations

A US Air Force C-5 Galaxy lands at RAF Fairford in south west England on March 6, 2026. (AFP)
A US Air Force C-5 Galaxy lands at RAF Fairford in south west England on March 6, 2026. (AFP)
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US Starts Using UK Bases for ‘Defensive’ Iran Operations

A US Air Force C-5 Galaxy lands at RAF Fairford in south west England on March 6, 2026. (AFP)
A US Air Force C-5 Galaxy lands at RAF Fairford in south west England on March 6, 2026. (AFP)

The United States has started using British bases for certain operations against Iran during the Middle East war, the UK government announced on Saturday.

Britain's defense ministry said the US had begun using the military sites for "specific defensive operations to prevent Iran firing missiles into the region".

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer annoyed US President Donald Trump for initially refusing to have any role in the US-Israeli war with Iran, which started a week ago, on February 28.

He later agree to a US request to use two British military bases for a "specific and limited defensive purpose".

Those bases are Fairford in Gloucestershire, western England, and the UK-US Diego Garcia base on the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean.

A US Air Force B-1 Lancer bomber landed at Fairford on Saturday, an AFP photographer saw.

An American C-5 Galaxy plane could also be seen on the runway of the base, as anti-war protesters demonstrated outside.

Trump had said he was "not happy with the UK" and mocked Starmer by saying "this is not Winston Churchill that we're dealing with".

Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, has defended his initial decision by saying any UK "must always have a lawful basis and a viable thought-through plan".

He has also insisted that he was right to change his position because Iran's retaliation with missiles and drones to the US-Israeli strikes have threatened British interests and allies in the region.

Lawmakers in Starmer's ruling Labour party remain haunted by former prime minister Tony Blair's disastrous support for the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

A Survation poll of 1,045 Britons published on Friday found that 56 percent of respondents believed Starmer was right not to involve Britain in the initial strikes. Only 27 percent said he was wrong.

World

Israel Says Targeted Tehran Airport in Wave of Overnight Strikes

Smoke rises from the site of airstrikes at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran on March 7, 2026. (AFP)
Smoke rises from the site of airstrikes at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran on March 7, 2026. (AFP)
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Israel Says Targeted Tehran Airport in Wave of Overnight Strikes

Smoke rises from the site of airstrikes at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran on March 7, 2026. (AFP)
Smoke rises from the site of airstrikes at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran on March 7, 2026. (AFP)

Israel's military said on Saturday it had struck aircraft belonging to Iran's Revolutionary Guards at Tehran's Mehrabad airport, as part of a wave of strikes overnight on the city.

"The Israeli Air Force... completed a broad wave of strikes across Tehran and on military infrastructure located at the 'Merabad Airport' in Tehran", it said in a statement.

"16 aircraft of the 'Quds Force' unit of the IRGC were precisely dismantled", it said, referring to the branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guards that oversees its foreign operations.

The military accused the Guards of using Mehrabad International Airport, one of two that serve the capital, to send cash and weapons to its proxies in the Middle East, including Lebanon's Hezbollah.

"Also targeted were several Iranian fighter jets that posed a threat to Israeli Air Force aircraft operating in Iranian airspace", the statement added.

The army also said strikes overnight hit a key command center for the Iranian air force, as well as a site used to manufacture ballistic missiles.

Earlier on Saturday, Israel's military said more than 80 fighter jets completed a wave of strikes on Iranian military sites, missile launchers and other targets in Tehran and central Iran.

"Over 80 Israeli Air Force fighter jets... completed an additional wave of strikes targeting infrastructure belonging to the Iranian terror regime," the military said in a statement.

The statement said that jets hit a military academy belonging to the Revolutionary Guards which "was being used as an emergency asset".

It said the facility was being used for military operations, making it "a lawful military objective".

Other targets included an underground command center and missile storage facility as well as launch sites, "in order to reduce the scope of fire directed at the territory of the State of Israel", the statement said.

Israeli media reported that the commander of Israel's air force General Tomer Bar had personally taken part in an overnight sortie to hit Tehran.

When Israel joined the United States in a massive wave of strikes on Iran at the start of the war, the Israeli military said 200 fighter jets took part in the raids, calling it the largest in the air force's history.